HC tops state report-card growth metrics; new letter grades out for schools

Sep. 3—HENDERSON — North Carolina's 2021-22 school report cards showed that local schools, like their counterparts elsewhere in the state, have a lot of ground to make up when it comes to helping students overcome the learning opportunities they lost to the pandemic.

But a Vance County charter school, Henderson Collegiate, appears to have gotten further down that road than most. It received the state's No. 1 score on an index that tries to gauge how much students' academic performance has grown over the course of the school year.

Like the Tri-County's other three large charter schools, Henderson Collegiate received a B overall in the state report cards, but the showing in the growth index had co-founder Eric Sanchez beaming with pride.

"Literally No. 1 out of 2,700 public schools. An accomplishment like that is pretty amazing," Sanchez said. "To see our kids work relentlessly toward their goals and to see teachers guided by commitment and love for your kids and see it all together is special. Don't get me wrong, it was one of the most challenging years in our history with COVID and staffing. But we watched a group of people and parents come together for something extraordinary."

The N.C. Department of Public Instruction and the State Board of Education deem a school to have exceeded growth expectations when it scores a 2 or better on the academic-growth index. Henderson Collegiate scored 18.77, nearly a full point higher than the second-highest score, turned in by a STEM middle school in Charlotte.

The region's next-highest score in the growth index, 6.08, came from Granville Early College High School.

Henderson Collegiate's charter-school peers in the Tri-County — Vance Charter School, Oxford Preparatory School and Falls Lake Academy — got growth-index scores of 2.36, -0.25 and -0.44, respectively. The latter two met the state's academic-growth expectations, which it defines as a score between 1.99 and -2.00. Vance Charter's score meant that like HC, it exceeded expectations.

"Working through adversity in a collaborative environment helped provide our students opportunities for growth, not only academically, but socially, emotionally and athletically," said Brian Mathis, Vance Charter's executive director and high school principal. "We are continuing our focus on promoting high expectations for students and staff, student growth, and teamwork to aid in continuous improvement. I am so proud of our teachers' effectiveness and the lasting impact they have on our students and community."

Local and state officials alike urged more attention to growth scores because they understood that 2021-22 was likely to be a rebound year from the "learning losses" that occurred when infection concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic curtailed in-person teaching.

This is the first year since 2018-19 to see officials fully implement the report-card system, and they cautioned that this year's returns aren't necessarily comparable to those of the past. They also poured some cold water on the letter-grade system as 80% is based on test scores and only 20% on academic growth.

"I share the same concerns of many educators, parents and others who have raised concerns for years about the fairness of the grades, but because of the pandemic, the 80-20 formula caused more school grades to slip," State Superintendent Catherine Truitt said. "The current accountability model does not do justice to the hard work that teachers and students put in every day in schools across the state, and I look forward to working with stakeholders to consider other metrics important to determining school quality."

That said, the state still awarded letter grades, and in the Tri-County only two schools got As: Granville Early College High School and Vance County Early College. Granville Early College exceeded academic-growth expectations; Vance Early College met them.

Along with the region's four charter schools, the Vance County Schools' STEM Early High School and the Warren County Schools' Warren Early College High School got Bs. Both met growth expectations.

Getting Cs were five Granville County Public Schools institutions — Butner-Stem Elementary, G.C. Hawley Middle School, Granville Academy, Tar River Elementary and Wilton Elementary — along with the Vance system's Aycock Elementary and the Warren system's Warren New Tech High School.

Butner-Stem, Tar River and Aycock all exceeded academic-growth expectations; Hawley, Wilton and Warren New Tech met them and Granville Academy did not meet expectations.

In the Granville system, D grades went to the C.G. Credle, Creedmoor, Mount Energy, Butner-Stem and West Oxford elementary schools, the Butner-Stem and North Granville middle schools, and all three of the system's high schools, J.F. Webb, Granville Central and South Granville.

Vance schools with D grades include Dabney, E.O. Young, Pinkston Street, L.B Yancey and Zeb Vance elementaries, and Vance County High School. Also getting a D was Warren County High School.

None of the five traditional-system, traditional-program high schools in the region met academic growth expectations.

Stovall-Shaw, Dabney, Pinkston Street, L.B. Yancey and Zeb Vance exceeded growth expectations, while Credle, Creedmoor, Mount Energy, Butner-Stem Middle, West Oxford, Northern Granville and E.O. Young met them.

Granville County Public Schools officials noted that three-quarters of their schools met or exceeded academic-growth expectations.

"The results from this past year are encouraging given all that our students, our families and our staff have been through in recent years with the pandemic," Superintendent Alisa McLean said. "It's been a challenging time for all of us. However, I am very proud of our students' growth and the dedication and hard work of our educators."

As for the Vance County Schools, while the data "has its bright spots ... we recognize our areas of learning gaps and deficiencies," Superintendent Cindy Bennett said. "Our schools worked diligently to ensure students received a year's growth for a year's schooling. The results indicated that was accomplished."

She added, "We will continue to focus on growth, which yields proficiency. We will not use the pandemic to lower expectations for students because we are committed to our vision: providing an adaptable educational setting where learning is a catalyst to the pursuit of dreams in an evolving society. Our district remains focused on growth and we are thankful for the resilience of our teachers, students and families."

F grades went to the Vance system's Carver, Clarke, New Hope and E.M. Rollins elementary schools, to Vance County Middle School, and Vance Virtual Village Academy. All those Vance schools, save for the new virtual school, nonetheless met their academic-growth expectations.

Also getting Fs were the Warren system's Miriam Boyd and Vaughan elementaries, its Northside K-8 school and Warren County Middle School. Three of those four, Vaughan being the exception, met their academic-growth expectations.

Except for Vance Virtual, all of the schools in the region that got Fs have majorities of students the state classifies as economically disadvantaged. On the other end of the scale, with but one exception, the schools with A or B grades had less than 50% of their students classed as economically disadvantaged.

The exception was Henderson Collegiate, where 51% of students met the state's definition of economically disadvantaged. The other three charter schools were in the 20s, percentage-wise.

Sanchez said the key is seeing to it that teachers and staff "work relentlessly to help our kids grow," and having high expectations. He added that the return to in-person instruction was also a major factor.

"We have beliefs that being smart is a choice, that being smart is cool, [and that] if you want more, do more," he said. "We live by the credo of 'Make it happen.' "

Contact Ray Gronberg at rgronberg@hendersondispatch.com or by phone at 252-436-2850.

Contact Ray Gronberg at rgronberg@hendersondispatch.com or by phone at 252-436-2850.