Thursday March 28th, 2024 5:06PM

Gainesville City School Board looks at CCRPI numbers for 2019

The Gainesville City School Board got an update on the College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI) at Monday night’s meeting, and this year they had results to compare back to.

The scoring changed prior to the 2018 testing year, meaning last year there wasn’t anything the district could compare against themselves. With another year - the 2019 testing year - under their belts, Deputy Superintendent Sarah Bell said they saw overall improvement.

"We've definitely seen improvement, we've seen improvement across the board - elementary, middle and high school," said Bell about the 69.2 overall score. "We are very pleased with the improvements that have been made and although there's certainly room for improvement and growth, we can certainly celebrate that our students are being very successful, in particularly in the area of reading."

The results are scored by points, not by percents or percentiles, but some information from the state can be confusing to parents and make the district look like a “C” district, Bell said.

"There are different entities utilizing this information for improvement, so one of the important things for a family to know, for instance, would be that this is based on a 100 point scale but the calculation is incredibly complex," said Bell. "So basically, for a family, the important thing to know is that the CCRPI is a combination of achievement and of progress and of growth, there are some other factors so its important to take a look at all of the different components to assess how a school is doing. It's not as simplistic as to say a score of a 50 is an F."

The CCRPI test results by each district are available to the public online, and break down elementary, middle and high school scores in math, English and language arts (ELA), science and social studies. Bell said math and ELA were used as standards for how students are doing because they are tested on them every year, while in science and social studies they are tested on specific years.

One key thing the board looked at was a flagging system that denoted how well subgroups, such as students with disabilities, ESOL students and students by denoted race did in each category.

"We have many subgroups and it's important that we're keeping an eye on how those subgroups are performing," said Bell. "This is one way we're able to do that."

Superintendent Jeremy Williams mentioned that since the school system was on a program that allowed all students free breakfast and lunch, they were categorized as a 100% economically disadvantaged school system.

When asked by board member Heather Ramsey if there was a way to compare the district, Bell and Williams said their district wasn’t exactly comparable to other districts due to the district being classified as 100% economically disadvantaged, among other things, such as English learners.

The way the goals were set also changed, Bell said now, with the updated standards for the 2018 testing year, the next year’s goals were set on previous results instead of a statewide goal.

The L4GA grant previously awarded to the city school system Bell believed was making a difference as well in the ELA scores, which were generally higher.

Bell said they usually try to pick up the data as soon as they can, starting in the summer, so they knew what to expect with the comprehensive data recently released, but this online report was a more overall look at it. 

In our area overall, Hall County Schools scored 72.4, Gwinnett County scored 82.5, Lumpkin County scored 75.5 and White County scored 79.6. The statewide overall score is 75.9.

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