Five Polk Schools Appeal Grades

LAKELAND | Four Polk County schools that narrowly missed making adequate yearly progress - the measuring stick for the federal No Child Left Behind Act - are asking the state to review their grades.

In their appeals to the state, Dundee Elementary, Boswell Elementary in Winter Haven and Lime Street and Cleveland Court elementary schools in Lakeland, maintain they only barely missed making adequate yearly progress and should be re-evaluated.

A fifth school, Scott Lake Elementary in Lakeland, wants the state Department of Education to change its grade from a B to an A, contending that student FCAT scores were high enough to warrant the higher grade.

Grades are used to reward top schools and sanction those deemed to be failing. Schools that receive A's earn $85 per student. School advisory councils determine how the money will be spent.

Friday was the deadline for districts to send in appeals.

The four schools appealing their assessment of whether they made adequate yearly progress say they were close enough to warrant a second look.

"Basically, we think the DOE made a mistake on the calculation of AYP based on one student or a few students," said Wilma Ferrer, the district's senior director of assessment, accountability and evaluation.

The DOE calculates adequate yearly progress by, among other things, measuring how a school's total student population performs on the FCAT, and also breaks down the test scores for various categories of students - Caucasians, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, American Indians, economically disadvantaged, English language learners and students with disabilities.

Ferrer said students may have barely missed the mark in one of those categories.

When determining school grades, the state factors in the difference between the learning gains made by the lowest 25 percent of students and the rest of the school.

Scott Lake is appealing the learning gains made by the lowest 25 percent in the math portion of the FCAT, Ferrer said.

[ John Chambliss can be reached at john.chambliss@theledger.com or 863-802-7588. ]