PANAMA CITY — Three of seven local high schools were given lower grades in school testing this year, but school officials say the marks are deceiving.
The preliminary high school grades released Wednesday by the Florida Department of Education to evaluate students’ test scores have drawn the ire of some school district officials. The grades are deceiving because the state raised the bar in the grading system, requiring better scores to get the same grade as last year, said Bay County Superintendent Bill Husfelt.
The students’ “performance has not decreased,” he said. “While the grade has dropped, their performance has maintained or improved in almost every category.”
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The grades decreased from an A last year to a B this year at Bay High School; from a B last year to a C this year at Rutherford High School; and from an A last year to a B this year at A. Crawford Mosley High School. The grades remained the same from last year at Deane Bozeman School, which scored a C; at J.R. Arnold High School, which scored a B; at North Bay Haven Career Academy, which scored an A; and at Newpoint Bay Charter High School, which scored a C.
The data shows six of the seven high schools — with Arnold High being the exception — had reading gains for the lowest 25 percent of students of at least 50 percent.
Husfelt said the school district is celebrating the improvement in the tests but is frustrated by the ever-changing scoring standards.
“Six of the seven schools increased on the assessment components,” he said. “Six out of seven schools grew in writing percentage, scoring a satisfactory or higher. Five of the seven high schools showed gains for math readiness. Participation in acceleration programs increased in most of the high schools.”
He said Deane Bozeman School really was cheated this year in the grading process.
“Bozeman improved 59 points and still didn’t get a higher letter grade, and that’s the frustrating part of this,” he said.
The top-scoring school and only one to get an A under the new grading system was North Bay Haven Charter Academy High School, which had a 74 percent reading percentage that was satisfactory or higher; a 93 percent math percentage that was satisfactory or higher; a 69 percent writing percentage that was satisfactory or higher; and an 80 percent science grade that is satisfactory or higher.
The lowest scoring schools in Bay County were Newpoint Bay Charter High School and Rutherford High School.
Newpoint Bay only scored a 21 percentage writing grade that is satisfactory or higher. Its students, however, scored well in science grades, with a 70 percent satisfactory or higher grade.