Carbon School District Press Release
Carbon School district came out looking very good when compared to the rest of the state of Utah based on school grades that were announced on Sept. 25 by the Utah State Board of Education. While the state’s number of good grades decreased, Carbon actually had two schools where the letter grade assigned to them improved one grade. The remaining schools in the district remained the same as in 2016.
“When you think about the state in general and compare that to Carbon School District, we have no school whose grade went down,” said superintendent Dr. Lance Hatch. “Across the state, there were a lot that did drop. I think this is a huge celebration, particularly in light of what went on in the rest of the state.”
On the top of the list was Helper Middle School, which over the past four years has gone up a grade at a time annually from a D in 2014 to an A this past year. The other school that improved was Castle Heights Elementary, moving from a C to a B under the current system. The other schools getting a B were Carbon High, Bruin Point Elementary, Creekview Elementary and Wellington Elementary. Two schools got C grades; Mont Harmon Middle School and Sally Mauro Elementary.
For the last four years, Utah law has required that public schools in the state, including charter schools, be given a letter grade based on student proficiency and growth on Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence (SAGE) tests. At the high school level, ACT test results and graduation rates on those campuses are also part of the determinant of the letter grade given. In elementary schools in the state, literacy test results factor into the A-F grading.
The A that Helper Middle School got is the top grade that has been awarded to a school in the district since grade scores for schools were first initiated in 2014.
This past year, which will be the final year of simple letter grades awarded to schools under new legislation that will change how schools are evaluated, a higher number of elementary schools and middle schools across the state got the lower two grades (D and F) in 2017 than they did in 2016. There were also a few more Cs and a lower number of As and Bs awarded statewide. At the high school level, there were more that received As while the numbers of Bs decreased. The new reports show that high schools also increased in the lower three grade categories, with more Cs, Ds and Fs given out.
The actual SAGE scores for Carbon School District were overall very positive as well. The report below shows the percentage of students in third through 11th grades who scored at the “proficient” level according to the SAGE assessment.
Bruin Point Elementary: Language Arts 40 percent, Math 46 percent and Science 50 percent.
Castle Heights Elementary: Language Arts 50 percent, Math 60 percent and Science 40 percent.
Creekview Elementary: Language Arts 49 percent, Math 57 percent and Science 51 percent.
Sally Mauro Elementary: Language Arts 42 percent, Math 38 percent and Science 28 percent.
Wellington Elementary: Language Arts 56 percent, Math 52 percent and Science 52 percent.
Helper Middle School: Language Arts 56 percent, Math 47 percent and Science 58 percent.
Mont Harmon Middle School: Language Arts 49 percent, Math 38 percent and Science 40 percent.
Carbon High School: Language Arts 42 percent, Math 48 percent and Science 56 percent.
Castle Heights Elementary increased the number of students scoring proficient in math by 15 percent over last year. Creekview Elementary increased their percentage of students scoring proficient in math by 11 percent. Wellington Elementary increased their proficiency in all three subject areas (language arts, mathematics and science) with the largest being a 10 percent increase in the percentage of students proficient in language arts. Helper Middle School had seven percent more students proficient in language arts and 10 percent more in science.
However, there was a slight downside in the elementary schools that is of concern to Hatch. Every elementary school saw a decrease in the percentage of students scoring proficient in science compared to the previous year.
“That’s one of the things we will be working on with the elementary principals,” said Hatch. “We have to ask ourselves, while most of the elementary schools did better than the state average in science, why did our elementary schools show a decrease in the percentage of students proficient in science compared to last year? I think that if the percentage of students scoring proficient in science had gone up as it did in the other subjects, those schools that were Bs may not have remained there. Some of them may have been awarded the A grade. Science is a very important subject for our students and will be even more important in a world with changing workforce needs. We will need to make some adjustments to ensure that we see the same consistent improvement in science as we have seen in the other areas.”
Scores from SAGE are based on both proficiency and growth. For science in the lower grades this year, that was the problem.
“There was no growth,” stated the superintendent. “The district’s overall growth was there, and the state was at 50 percent, but in the district’s elementary schools overall we did not show sufficient growth.”