FDOE releases school grades

by Teresa Eubanks, CLJNews.com

In the second of the three reports to be issued on school performance by the Florida Department of Education (FDOE), the Liberty County School District received an A rating while the Calhoun County School District earned a B. The grades were announced on Monday.

The individual school grades for Liberty County included an A for Tolar Elementary and a B for Liberty County High School and Hosford School.

Blountstown High School earned an A while the county’s remaining schools – including Blountstown Elementary, Carr School and Altha School – all received B grades.

“As a part of Florida’s first-in-the-nation transition to using progress monitoring instead of traditional high stakes testing, grades for the 2022-2023 school year serve as a baseline and carry no negative consequences,” according to a news release from FDOE. “Using this baseline, schools and districts can work toward improved performance in future years.”

Calhoun County Assistant School Superintendent Debbie Williams explained, “You take the first test at the beginning of the year to see where the kids are and use that data to inform instruction. The mid-year test is to see what strategies are working to try to improve and direct instruction to see where we’re weak.”

The change in testing schedule is a move forward, according to Liberty County School Superintendent Kyle Peddie. “If you’ve got issues, you can deal with them without waiting until the end of the year,” he said. After going over the results in more depth, he explained, “I will meet with the principals over the Christmas Break to see where we need to make adjustments in our instruction.”

“These school grades serve as a baseline for districts and provide a starting point for future achievement,” said Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz, Jr.