Valdosta falls short of AYP

By JOHNNA PINHOLSTER

August 06, 2008 09:39 pm

— VALDOSTA — Five of the nine schools within the Valdosta City School System failed to make AYP this year.
Valdosta High, Valdosta Middle, Newbern Middle, Southeast Elementary and J.L. Lomax Elementary schools all failed to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress standards that were released in late August.
Superintendent Dr. Bill Cason said he is not happy with the system’s results.
“We can do much better and we should do much better,” Cason said. “We are going to increase our focus on all the things that determine how we make AYP.”
While some of the failing scores can be accredited to the special population of students, that is not the only reason the system did not meet AYP, Cason said.
Attendance, graduation rates and math scores were also key factors and the sub-par scores.
Students with disabilities scored 31.7 percent overall while the economic disadvantaged sections for the CRCT math section of the AYP standards scored 55 percent. Both were below the 59.5 percent meets or exceeds rate.
For the math section of the Georgia High School Graduation Test the score for all students was 63.6 percent well below the 74.9 percent meets or exceeds bar.
“Five schools that did not make AYP this year is unacceptable,” Cason said. “We will be taking a stronger look at a lot of areas across the board academically.”
The process for improving the scores began earlier this summer, but the process will not be something that changes overnight, he said.
A balance score card will be implemented at all the schools that will help gauge the strengths and weakness in all academic areas.
“With this we will be able to identify individual needs of each student and provide concentrated help where it is needed most,” Cason said. “I firmly believe you have to accept the fact that you do have a problem and then find a way to fix it.”
The system will make improvement plans for all schools with input from both administrators and teachers but heavy focus will be on those that failed, Gayle Golden Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning said.
This was the first year J.L. Lomax has been placed in the needs improvement category, while Valdosta Middle School and Valdosta High School are in their second year of missing AYP.
Newbern Middle and Southeast Elementary are in their fourth year of missing AYP, Golden said.
Scores for all schools in Georgia can be found at http://public.doe.k12.ga.us/ayp2008/search.asp.