Superintendent said steps are being made to brings up scores
W.S. Neal High School and Escambia County High School have landed on the list of ‘failing schools’, receiving an ‘F’ based on the scores of 11th grade ACT tests taken last spring.
The grade comes from 2013’s Alabama Accountability Act, which requires the bottom 6 percent of schools to be labeled as failing based on those ACT test scores from the previous spring.
Escambia County Superintendent Michele McClung said when she saw their ACT scores when she stepped foot on the job and she knew they would be listed as failing schools so she was prepared.
“We’ve done a lot of work to be proactive,”said McClung. “I knew as soon as I saw the scores in September that they would be a failing school.”
She said she met with board members individually last September and discussed the trend of low scores to let them know what would be coming. She said she was surprised that there were not more failing schools.
McClung said she feels one factor is not having a four-year university nearby. She said most of the students who are going to go to college are already dually enrolled while they’re in high school.
“There’s no skin in the game for the kids,” said McClung. “The kids who are dually enrolled know they don’t have to make any certain score to continue on. We’ve got to incentivize this for our students and make it important for them.”
McClung said the turnover of two administrators and some teachers in the last two years at W.S. Neal contributed to the low score there. She said new principal Todd Williamson is working hard, fully staffing the school.
“When the state increased our Alabama raises, it helped us become more competitive in a rural area,” said McClung. “Also with T.R. Miller taking our teachers, they are able to offer them a free master’s degree, we are competing with that with our local Brewton City people.”
She said the raise has allowed the system to get experienced teachers this year and the new Centegix badge security system provides more safety for teachers and provides security on the job is
McClung said the last round of COVID and the CDC changing the guidelines with mandated quarantine presented some real educational challenges.
“That didn’t help when you’re having faculty out,” said McClung. “Last year, we had our challenges.”
McClung said when she began in Escambia County last year, she realized teachers did not have pacing guides which guide teachers what to teach and when. They began last February creating and collaborating with each other to create pacing guides and they are still working on them.
She said there is work being done on developing common assessments and quality student work displays to align what they are teaching to grade level. Teacher training, work cycle assessments and common assessments that will assess student skill across the county to make sure they are learning the same curriculum will help ensure teachers are pacing the same curriculum system-wide.
McClung said the school system is working towards coming together and working as one instead of three different areas, working to get on the same page. She said she knows it will take time, especially with a new crew of teachers coming in.
McClung said her administrative staff is in schools across the county doing walk-throughs, evaluating teachers and giving feedback. She predicted that every school except one will probably take a turn backward a small amount because the COVID pandemic, citing that, the way the testing is set up, if each school did not test 95 percent of every subgroup in to test, another 2 points was taken off the school system’s report card grade.
“That’s the case in all of our schools, as well as across the district,” said McClung. “We got penalized for not having that two years in a row.”
She said the year before she came, COVID most likely made it difficult to get the students, including virtual students, to come in and test. In other words, if 95 percent of the whole school tested, but that does not include 95 percent of all females, then that sub-group is considered not having tested, and that school system has 2 points deducted on its report card. With numerous sub-groups testing at less than 95 percent, those 2-point decreases cause detrimental penalties, which impacts the report card grade given to that school system.
“We’re holding steady, but I think next year will be a different picture for us,” said McClung.
The school system has installed a math and literacy initiative in K through 8th grade at the elementary school, which is showing growth already.
“A lot of this is what I inherited,” said McClung. “It takes a few months to get to know the county and the issues and problems of the county and come up with a plan. I was operating off the former superintendent’s plan, but this year we have our plan and its headed in the right direction.”
Escambia County High School has been on the failing list 5 times in recent years. This was the first time for W.S. Neal High School.
“There’s a change in administration, we have a very solid administrative team this year, restructured,” said McClung. “I think just the structure and the high expectations from the team that’s in there this year is going to make a difference and I look forward to them getting off that list. Their ACT scores are very close to Neal’s. They actually improved in their ACT score a little bit. They are barely making the list.”
McClung said finding a way to make the students care is key, citing that when they sit down for four hours to take the ACT.
“We have to find a way for them to understand their performance in those four hours makes a lot of difference to the outlook for the teachers and the community and the school as well.”
McClung cited the unfortunate fact that the state department sets failure benchmarks to placate politicians, which she finds is a travesty to education.
“We could have the entire state scoring a 20 on the ACT and the state department is going to by law, because of the politicians who created this law, there will always have to be 6 percent of the schools for the failing list, no matter the score,” said McClung. “As an educator, I feel that is a travesty to education.”
McClung is confident that even though the two school’s ACT scores are currently unacceptable, the students can and will do better than that but it will take incentives to get the students to show what they know. She said there is in place a practice ACT componenet, embedded every day in student instruction.
“They’re getting better,” said McClung. “I see improvement. We did walk-thoughs today and I see tremendous improvements today over this time last year. I see better growth than I expected.”
