Six Polk Co. schools earn ABCs honors

Published 1:07 pm Thursday, August 5, 2010

When North Carolinas ABCs of Public Education results are released today, Polk County Schools officials expect to be among the states leaders with six of seven schools receiving recognition.

Three schools Tryon Elementary, Saluda Elementary and Sunny View Elementary were named Honor Schools of Excellence with High Growth, while Polk Central Elementary, Polk County Middle School and Polk County High School earned School of Distinction honors. Polk Central and PCMS were High Growth schools, and PCHS had Expected Growth.

Statistically, a school meets expected academic growth if students measure a years worth of growth on the states tests from one year to the next, and it meets high growth if students made more than a years worth of growth over that same time frame.

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We have a lot of teachers and staff working hard to make sure that the students get all they possibly can out of the time they spend with us (in school), said Polk County Schools Accountability Director Dave Scherping.

All seven Polk County schools previously met federally mandated Adequate Yearly Progress goals, leaving North Carolinas measures of progress to be met for the 2008-09 school year.

Tryon Elementary led the way with 94.5 percent of students tested performing at or above proficiency. Saluda joined at 92.7 percent and Sunny View at 92.1 percent.

In order to receive Honor School of Excellence recognition, schools must have a minimum of 90 percent of students test at or above proficiency. School of Distinction honorees have a minimum of 80 percent tested at or above proficiency.

PCMS led the Schools of Distinction with 88.3 percent, followed by PCHS at 87.2 percent and Polk Central at 85.3 percent.

Scherping said he is particularly proud of the school systems performance this year given the economic climate that has clouded everything in the recent past, including education.

Its been a stressful year for families, and this really shows their commitment to education by making sure their children are put in a position to learn, said Scherping. Our informal polling with other school systems around us has led us to believe that students results fell significantly in those areas.

Only Polk Countys Early College Program, which consists of about 40 students, did not meet Expected or High Growth plateaus this year.

When you only have 40 students, sometimes the numbers can be skewed, said Scherping. Even so, we are putting a plan in place to help those students reach those goals.

The Early College still had a performance composite of 70.8 percent.

In a lot of places, they would be thrilled with that number, but its not good enough for us, said Scherping.