All seven Polk County schools achieved their federally mandated Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) goals this year, according to David Scherping, technology/accountability director with Polk County Schools.
“If our schools had not made AYP, and if we had not made it for a number of years, then there are a lot of sanctions that can go into place,” Scherping said.  “We’ve luckily not had to worry about that.”
Because Polk Middle School is the system’s largest and most diverse school based on student population, it had 21 target goals to meet. It achieved all 21 of those requirements.
Meanwhile, Tryon Elementary School met 17 out of 17 target goals, Polk Central School met 13 out of 13, Polk County Early College met all three of its goals, Polk County High School met 13 out of 13 goals, Saluda Elementary School met nine out of nine and Sunny View Elementary hit all 13 of its goals for the year.
The targets, mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind program and developed by each state, are created based on the number of subgroups a school is held accountable for within its student population. Those are based on ethnicity, English proficiency and economics.
If a school, for example, educates more than 40 Asian students or 40 economically disadvantaged students within its population, it must be held accountable for test scores achieved by those subsets of students.
Other subsets include the school as a whole; students of American Indian, Black, Hispanic and multi-racial heritage; students with limited English proficiency and students with disabilities.
Among those subgroups, schools must:
• Achieve 95-percent participation rate in reading/language arts assessment
• Achieve 95-percent participation rate in mathematics assessment
• Meet or exceed the state’s annual measurable objective (AMO) for proficiency in reading/language arts
• Meet or exceed the state’s AMO for proficiency in mathematics
• Show progress on attendance for grades three through eight.
Scherping said Polk is proud of the results but doesn’t educate students each day with those results in mind.
“We don’t do it because there are these rankings out there, we do it because it’s the right thing for students,” Scherping said. “That’s why Polk County schools were good long before there was testing and we will continue to be good.”
Scherping said last year Polk County Schools was one of only a handful of systems in the state to meet AYP goals.
The State Board of Education is expected to give its final approval of the results Aug. 4. More information related to test results will be released at that time.