Flomaton gets an all A's grade

For the first time since the Alabama Department of Education began issuing school report cards, Flomaton Elementary School and Flomaton High School each received an A when grades were released last week. Both schools scored an overall score of 90.

The two Flomaton schools were the only two schools within the Escambia County School System to receive A's. The school system received a B with an overall score of 85.

Scores from other schools within the county school system are: W.S. Neal Middle School, B; W.S. Neal High School, B; W.S. Neal Elementary School, C; Rachel Patterson Elementary School, C; Pollard-McCall Junior High School, B; Huxford Elementary School, C; Escambia County Middle School, C; and Escambia County High School, C.

The Brewton City School System received an A with an overall score of 90 with two of the three schools receiving A's. Brewton Elementary School and Brewton Middle School each received an A and T.R. Miller High School received a B with an overall score of 86.

FES Principal George Brown and FHS Principal Scott Hammond both credited the teachers, students and parents for the A report cards.

Brown said the elementary schools are graded on grades three through 6 in three areas: achievement, growth and growth on the Scantron test. He noted the grades received last week were based on the 2018-19 school year.

“The third graders get that foundation from somewhere and it begins in kindergarten,” Brown said. “K, one and two provide that foundation.”

He said the first Scantron test is given at the end of September and is used as a test baseline. A second test is given in January and the last in the spring. The difference between the first test and the one given in the spring determine the academic achievement and academic growth.

“After the first test, teachers develop plans to improve,” Brown said. “The one in the middle is just to see where we are.”

Brown said for a school with 56 percent of its students below the poverty level it is a great accomplishment.

“We were already really good and to improve on really good is great,” Brown said. “I know the caliber of teachers and students we have here.”

Brown said the implementation of extras like art and Project Outreach, which focuses on students with disabilities and students helping other students has really been a plus for the whole school.

“We focus on character education and those little things make a big difference,” he said.

Brown also said schools can only be as good as the parental support the school receives.

“We can't do it on our own here,” he said. “It takes parents to make it work and we couldn't do it without an active PTO. The bottom line is finding ways to affect students.”

“I can't say enough about the dedication of this teaching staff from data meetings to implementing programs to help students.”

He also said the school receives great support from the central office.

“It's a whole group effort,” he said.

He said although he's excited to receive the A, it's important to continue to improve.

“Where to we go from here?” Brown said. “Once you make an A you want to keep an A. It pushes teachers to do it again.”

Brown did say the Scantron test will not be used next year and is being replaced a new test called ACAP.

“It's all an unknown about the test at this time,” Brown said. “There will be a big focus on writing and with that comes teaching our students keyboarding.”

“Overall I'm proud for the whole county,” Brown said. “There were big jumps for the majority of the county schools and they should all be proud.”

Hammond said the high school is graded differently than the elementary school with 30 percent of the grade coming from the graduation rate, 30 percent coming from the growth component, 20 percent from achievement scores, 10 percent from attendance and 10 percent from college and career readiness.

The test results showed the high school scored 100 percent in academic growth and had a 92.59 percent graduation rate, which was the highest of the county school system's three high schools. Countywide the graduation rate was 92.16 percent. T.R. Miller High School had a graduation rate of 91.86 percent.

“I'm very proud of our students and faculty,” Hammond said. “We knew we were going to be close to an A, but we were all every excited when it became official. We have high expectations.”

Hammond did note that the school has shown improvement every year since the report cards started coming out.

Escambia County School Superintendent John Knott said he was very proud of the test scores, especially the two A's earned in Flomaton.

“We had increases in every school with the exception of two,” Knott said. “And those were small decreases.”

He also said across the county school system scores rose 6 percent.

“I was extremely proud of our graduation rate (92.19 percent),” Knott said. “This identifies areas we need to focus on but we did see progress.”