School grades for 2023 are out: Here's how Leon County Schools fared

In the 2022-23 school year, Leon County schools saw a number of schools move up grades and a couple move down, and the district overall managed to maintain its B grade from the Florida Department of Education.

The grades, released this week by the state, show no F grades for the district.

The marks are calculated from state assessment averages and acceleration scores for middle and high schools, which shows which students are excelling and need additional challenges.

Middle school acceleration was calculated from the percentage of students who passed high school level end-of-course exams. College and career acceleration was calculated from the percentage of graduating students who passed college level exams and received college credit or earned industry certifications.

Leon Schools Superintendent Rocky Hanna said the new state assessment models for the 2022-23 school year had a significant effect on school grades, especially for elementary schools.

"Please understand that these are baseline scores for this year, since we had a new test last year," Hanna told school board members during a workshop meeting Monday.

The Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) is the state's new "progress monitoring" style of testing for voluntary prekindergarten students through 10th grade in English language arts and for VPK through 8th grade for math.

"There are no learning gains included in school grades this year, which for elementary schools, is huge," Hanna said.

New benchmark standards guide state education

In school grades for previous years, learning gains were calculated into school grades to account for higher averages on state assessments each year. This year they could not be calculated due to new benchmark standards and the new assessments.

This year, elementary school grades were only calculated from English language arts proficiency, math proficiency and grade 5 science proficiency.

"I just think in a year with so much change in baselines and what's going on, I'd like for us to find a way to recognize those schools that did go up," board member Alva Smith said. "That's really just such an accomplishment and so proud of them."

David Solz, the district's director of K-12 school improvement and accountability, said there were a number of schools to celebrate as they went up in scores, including Riley Elementary school, which rose to a C from a D.

The elementary school is a Title I school located in District 5 in northwest Tallahassee.  Title I schools are those with a majority of students eligible for free or reduced lunch, a sign that most of the students come from a lower-income background. For the last two cycles of school grades the school received a D.

Nims Middle School and Godby High School received an I, or incomplete, from the state. Billy Epting, the district's assistant superintendent of academic services, said this may be because those schools fell short of the threshold of 95% of students testing for state assessments.

The district overall maintained a B grade but increased its score from 61 in 2021-22 to 64 for 2022-23, missing the threshold for an A grade by four points. Hanna says the district has been working hard to reach an A grade, however, the state raised the threshold for that grade from a 62 to a 68.

"So before, as a district we were one-point last year from an A," Hanna said. "We were going to be an A district for the first time in a number of years, but then they raised it."

Still, Hanna said, "we're on top of other like-size districts. All in all, I'm pleased."

Here's how the schools fared

The Public School Report Card is an interactive database that lets local parents and others see how their communities’ schools are performing (school grades and standardized test scores), and explore the gender and racial demographics of staff and students.

No Fs: Just as in the 2021-22 school year, no schools received an F grade.

Five schools received a D:

• All five are elementary schools: Oak Ridge Elementary School slipped from a C to a D for the 2022-23 school year. Hartsfield, Astoria Park, Apalachee, and Springwood maintained a D from the 2021-22 school year.

These schools received an A:

• Gilchrist, Killearn Lakes, DeSoto Trail, Buck Lake, Hawks Rise, Roberts, Deerlake, and Lawton Chiles all maintained A grades for the 2022-23 school year from the 2021-22 school year.

• Swift Creek, Montford, and SAIL rose from a B to an A in 2022-23.

Showing improvement:

• Kate Sullivan and W.T. Moore rose from a C to a B in 2023.

Charter Schools:

• The School of Arts and Sciences on Thomasville is the only A charter school after raising from a B grade in 2022.

• Governor's Charter, now renamed Renaissance Academy, was the only D charter school in 2023.

• The district's only two K-8 schools, Fort Braden and Woodville, received a C. Tallahassee Classical School also received a C.

• Tallahassee School of Math and Sciences and the School of Arts and Sciences at The Center received a B.

Research schools:

• Florida A&M University Development Research School (DRS) maintained a C in 2023. Florida State University School, also known as Florida High, maintained an A.

Alaijah Brown is with the Tallahassee Democrat and can be reached at ABrown1@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Making the grade: Leon County public schools get a B from the state