The Georgia Department of Education (DOE) Oct. 1 announced that all 27 Coweta County Schools met the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act by achieving 2008-2009 Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) requirements.

In the initial AYP report issued in July, two middle schools did not make AYP because of CRCT Math test scores, according to Coweta School System spokesperson Dean Jackson. But in the Oct. 1 revised report, the 2008-2009 status of Lee Middle School and Evans Middle School was changed to “meeting AYP,” which resulted in all Coweta schools meeting all standards in the federal act, Jackson said.

“This is exceptional,” said Superintendent Blake Bass. “All of our schools, and our school system as a whole, exceeded every standard set out by No Child Left Behind.”           

Jackson said the change also officially removes Evans Middle School from the list of ‘Needs Improvement’ schools because the school has met all AYP goals in student attendance and test scores in all subgroups for the last two years.

Bass noted that Coweta County schools have done well by the standards of No Child Left Behind since the accountability standards began in 2002. Each year, only a few of Coweta’s 27 applicable schools don’t meet AYP, generally because of performance in smaller “subgroupings” of students examined by the standards.

Bass said 93 percent of Coweta County’s schools made AYP during the 2007-2008 school year, compared to 79 percent in the state of Georgia. 

“However, this year is the first time that all of our schools and all subgroups exceeded every one of the academic and attendance goals in the act,” Bass said. “Along with last month’s report of Coweta’s highest SAT scores ever, today’s AYP report speaks very well about the academic integrity of our school system. Our high schools’ SAT scores were well above the national average, and now 100 percent of our schools have met national AYP standards under No Child Left Behind. That is a reflection of exceptional work by our students and teachers.”

Jackson said AYP accountability measures track the academic progress of schools every year by monitoring average student attendance (for elementary and middle schools) or high school graduation rate (for high schools) and student academic performance on state standardized tests given during the year. In Georgia, the Math, Reading and English/Language Arts portions of the Georgia Criterion Reference Competency Test (CRCT) or the Georgia High School Graduation Test (GHSGT) are used. The revised 2008-2009 report included the performance of 3rd, 5th and 8th grade students who re-took some sections of the state Criterion Referenced Competency Test in May, said Jackson.

Only 36 percent of public school systems in the state of Georgia had both 100 percent of schools as well as the school system as a whole meet AYP during 2008-09.

Jackson said schools are judged by the percentage of students who meet or exceed the standards of those tests during the school year. The performance of students is also tracked by subgroups including Students with Disabilities, Economically Disadvantaged Students, English Language Learners, and ethnic subgroups.

Schools make Adequate Yearly Progress if a high percentage of students meet yearly standards, and if all subgroups within the school’s population also meet the standards. If one or more subgroups within the school do not meet standards, then the whole school is deemed to have not made Adequate Yearly Progress.

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