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Report card – Oakhurst, Clairemont scores explained

Decatur Kirkwood and East Lake

Report card – Oakhurst, Clairemont scores explained

File photo: Students who live in the Lenox Place neighborhood walk to Oakhurst Elementary. The neighborhood has since been rezoned to Westchester, which will reopen this fall.
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File photo: Students who live in the Lenox Place neighborhood walk to Oakhurst Elementary. The neighborhood has since been rezoned to Westchester, which will reopen this fall.

File photo: Students who live in the Lenox Place neighborhood walk to Oakhurst Elementary. The neighborhood has since been rezoned to Westchester, which will reopen this fall.

The Decatur community celebrated when the state released the 2013 College and Career Ready Performance Index scores.

CCRPI is what has replaced the Adequate Yearly Progress scores that were a part of the discarded No Child Left Behind policy. Schools are graded on a scale of 1 to 100. City Schools of Decatur placed 5th overall in the state.

But Decaturish noticed something about those scores. According to the state, Oakhurst Elementary and Clairemont Elementary saw their scores drop from 2012 to 2013.

Clairemont Elementary

2013 – 90.3

2012 – 98.7

Oakhurst Elementary

2013 – 92.7

2012 – 97

Granted, that’s still higher than scores in neighboring district. Toomer Elementary received a 52.3. Still, we wondered why Decatur’s scores dropped and reached out to City Schools of Decatur for an answer. Here’s what they said:

From Accountability Director Joe Austin:

Clairemont: The main reason for the drop in scores is the Career Awareness Lessons. This was a new indicator and specific guidance on completing this work was lacking. Due to the lack of timely state guidance, Clairemont was not able to complete 100% of the Career Awareness lessons for all 1st-3rd grade students. Also, Clairemont did not have the student populations (ESL and Special Education) that some other K-3 schools had that would allow them to access additional points. In addition, Clairemont did have a slight drop in Achievement Gap closure. In 2012 they earned 15 out of 15 points. In 2013 they earned 14 out of 15 possible points.

Oakhurst: Like Clairemont the main reason for the drop in scores at Oakhurst was the Career Awareness Lessons. This was a new indicator and specific guidance on completing this work was lacking. Due to the lack of timely state guidance, Oakhurst was not able to complete 100 percent of the Career Awareness lessons for all 1st-3rd grade students. In addition, Oakhurst did have a slight drop in Achievement due to a slight decrease in CRCT scores. Oakhurst scores are still high and far exceed state averages. However, a small number of students can vastly impact overall test scores in a small elementary school.

The City Schools of Decatur Instructional Services Department will work closely with building level Principals to analyze the two years of CCRPI data and identify areas of strength and areas of potential growth within our instructional programs. The identifying of trends in the CCRPI data will yield information that will be used to plan and inform school improvement initiatives.

The moral of the story? Decatur’s school system is still among the best in the state, but there’s always room for improvement.

Here are the top 10 school systems in the state of Georgia:

Bremen City
Union County
Jefferson City
Forsyth County
City Schools of Decatur
Trion City
Oconee County
Buford City
Heard County
Lumpkin County

Source: City Schools of Decatur

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