Long County School administrators briefed the Long County Board of Education on the district’s College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI) scores at November’s mid-month meeting. The results were, overall, encouraging, they said. The system’s total score of 72.7 was just 4 points below the state’s total score of 76.6. CCRPI measures how well schools are performing.
CCRPI has numerous components, including content mastery, progress, closing gaps and readiness, according to the Georgia Department of Education website. Graduation rates also factor in CCRPI scores for high schools, according to gadoe.org. The 2018 CCRPI has been redesigned, Long County Superintendent Dr. Robert Waters said. These recent scores cannot be compared to prior year’s scores, Waters said.
“As part of Georgia’s state plan for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) – the replacement for No Child Left Behind – the state was able to make improvements to the CCRPI calculation,” Georgia DoE officials said. “The 2018 CCRPI is the first to use the new calculation – meaning comparisons between the 2018 CCRPI and any other year are not possible or valid.”
The state’s total scores were further broken down: 77.8 for elementary schools, 76.2 for middle schools, and 75.3 for high schools, according to gadoe.org.
The 2018 CCRPI scores for Long County’s two elementary schools included Smiley and Walker. Until the current 2018-2019 school year, Smiley served students in grades Kindergarten through three, and Walker served grades four and five. The schools were at a disadvantage, score-wise, when compared to the state elementary score, Waters said. He explained that the state’s total elementary school CCRPI score rates grades Kindergarten through five, so the scores for both Smiley and Walker would be skewed. Smiley scored a total of 71 on the CCRPI; Walker scored a 67. Smiley Elementary now serves grades Kindergarten through two, and McClelland Elementary serves grades three through five. The schools will continue to be compared to the state's elementary score of Kindergarten through fifth grade.
Long County Middle School received an 80.4 total score, four points higher than the state’s total CCRPI for middle schools. Long County High School received a 73.3 total CCRPI.
In addition, LCHS had a 91.3 percent total graduation rate, which was higher than the state’s 82 percent graduation rate.
Waters added that the district’s CCRPI scores were better than school systems of similar size in the region, including those of Evans, Tattnall and McIntosh counties. These small, rural school districts had lower 2018 CCRPI Regional Educational Service Agency (RESA) scores than Long’s. However, he advised that some comparisons cannot be made.
Waters said 76.8 percent of its students are economically disadvantaged, and the student population can also be characterized as somewhat transient, due to the number of military families whose children attend Long County schools. In neighboring Wayne County – which also has many students on reduced and free meals –– there is not the same student turnover as there is in Long, the superintendent said.
Waters also offered school board members comparisons of previous years’ graduation rates to the 2018 rates, both four- and five-year cohorts, to show overall improved rates. In 2016 the four-year cohort graduation rate was 89.01. Two years later it was 92.37. The five-year cohort graduation rate was 83.62 in 2016, and 89.27 in 2018; a slight dip, as it was 90.26 in 2017, according to Waters.