Citing improvements, the Georgia Department of Education Tuesday announced that 74 schools in the state, including four in northeast Georgia, have been removed from priority or focus schools lists.
"Priority schools represent the lowest-performing 5 percent of Title I schools based on achievement data, plus schools with a graduation rate below 60 percent for two consecutive years," a Georgia Department of Education media release stated. "Focus schools represent the lowest-performing 10 percent of Title I schools based on achievement gap data."
The four local schools all made it off of the focus school list. They include Lyman Hall and White Sulphur elementary schools in Hall County, Centennial Arts Academy in Gainesville and Kennedy Elementary in Barrow County.
"Every school that made the necessary improvements to exit priority or focus school status deserves to be commended," State School Superintendent Richard Woods said in the release. "The ongoing work of these schools, coupled with supports from GaDOE staff and RESAs, continues to move the needle and prove that underperforming schools can improve, even when they face difficult odds."
Georgia's Elementary and Secondary Education Act waiver granted flexibility from some parts of the No Child Left Behind Act, but required the state to identify priority and focus schools.
