The Union County School District continues to make progress toward the goal of leaving no child behind academically by the year 2014

Director of Secondary Education Cindy Langley announced this morning that the district had met 20 of 21 objectives for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Langley said that data released by the South Carolina State Department of Education shows the district’s 2011 compliance rating is 95.2 percent. She said this exceeds the state compliance rate of 94.6 percent. In addition, Langley said this is an improvement over the previous year when the district met 19 of 20 objectives for a compliance rating of 90.5 percent.

“We are always pleased when scores improve at the district level since that is a reflection of increases throughout the system, Cindy Langley, director of secondary education said. “Even though we missed the criteria in one area at the district level to meet AYP performance in English/Language Arts, all student groups made gains in ELA. We are especially proud of the jump in math since all student groups met AYP at the district level in math.”

Langley said four of eight county schools met their individual federal requirements for AYP compared to five of eight in 2010. The schools that met AYP are Buffalo Elementary School, Foster Park Elementary School, Jonesville Elementary School, and Monarch Elementary School. Each of these schools met 17 of 17 objectives.

“We are also excited that all of our Title 1 elementary schools met AYP,” Langley said. “Two schools were under corrective action last year. By meeting AYP for two consecutive years, Foster Park is no longer under corrective action and Buffalo Elementary School, which met AYP this year, is one year away from leaving corrective action. We congratulate the faculties at each of these schools for making these outstanding gains.”

Under the federal NCLB Act, AYP is a measure of each school’s progress toward meeting the national goal of having every student in America demonstrate proficiency in mathematics and English language arts (ELA) on state tests by the year 2014. NCLB is an “all-or-nothing” rating system requiring schools and districts to analyze their performance data by student categories such as all students, ethnicity, subsidized meals, and students with disabilities. The more demographic categories a school has, the more goals it must meet.

Jonesville Middle School met 12 of 17 objectives for a compliance rating of 70.6 percent; Lockhart Schools met 12 of 13 objectives for a compliance rating of 92.3 percent; Sims Middle School met 15 of 21 objectives for a compliance rating of 71.4 percent; and Union County High School met 8 of 17 objectives for a compliance rating of 47.1 percent.

In South Carolina, AYP performance at the elementary and middle school levels is based on the percentage of students in grades 3-8 meeting proficiency on PASS (Palmetto Assessment of State Standards) in English/Language Arts and mathematics. Targets for elementary students rose this year. At least 74.9 percent of the students in each category had to score proficient in English/Language Arts this year to meet AYP compared to 58.8 percent in 2010. In mathematics, 79 percent of the students had to score proficient compared to 57.8 percent in 2010.

AYP performance at the high school is based on the percentage of students scoring proficient in English language arts and mathematics on first attempt HSAP, the high school exit exam taken by sophomores. At least 71.3 percent of high school students in each category had to score proficient in English language arts with 70 percent in mathematics for a high school to meet AYP.

For a district to meet AYP, 67.6 percent of the students in each category had to score proficient in English language arts and 65.5 percent had to score proficient in mathematics. In the Union County School District, the percentage of students scoring proficient in English/Language Arts rose from 75.5 percent to 76.8 percent while the percentage scoring proficient in mathematics rose from 74.8 percent to 79 percent.