State data is showing improvement at New Hanover County Schools. Here's what to know.

Testing and accountability data released last month indicates more schools in the New Hanover County Schools district are making the grade than in 2021-2022.

Here are five things to know.

Academic growth measures students’ progress over the previous year.

According to a brief from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, academic growth is a standard “roughly equivalent to a year’s worth of expected growth for a year of instruction.” Growth is reported for each school as “exceeded growth expectations,” “met growth expectations,” or “did not meet growth expectations.” Growth is determined based on statistical data gathered from common assessments, such as End-of-Grade reading, math, and science tests for elementary and middle school students and End-of-Course tests in Biology, English, and Math, the Pre-ACT, the ACT, and the ACT Work Keys tests for high school students.

Letter grades are assigned to schools based on performance.

In addition to growth data, the state also assigns school performance letter grades. Eighty percent these grades are based on a school’s achievement score on standardized tests and 20 percent on the school’s academic growth. The total school performance score is converted to a 100-point scale, which is used to determine a school performance grade. Schools that receive a school performance grade of D or F and either meet or exceed growth are designated as “low-performing schools,” and must have a designated plan for improvement.

Most New Hanover County schools met or exceeded growth.

Academic growth standards indicated 18 of the district’s 40 schools exceeded growth and another 18 met growth in 2022-2023. The four schools that did not meet growth were Emsley A. Laney High School, Forest Hills Global Elementary School, New Hanover High School, and Williston Middle School.

The district had fewer low-performing schools.

In addition to seeing significant gains in the number of schools meeting or exceeding growth, New Hanover County Schools also saw several schools removed from the state’s Low-Performing Schools list. In 2021-2022, the district had 12 schools designated as low-performing schools. In 2022-2023, only seven were designated as low-performing. They were R. Freeman School of Engineering, College Park Elementary, Forest Hills Global Elementary, Career Readiness Academy at Moseley PLC, A H Snipes Academy of Arts and Design, Williston Middle, and Wrightsboro Elementary.

While A H Snipes Academy of Arts and Design and Wrightsboro Elementary School remained on the low-performing schools list, both saw improvements with their school performance increasing from F to D.

One of the district’s bright spots was Holly Shelter Middle School, previously designated as a low-performing school, exceeding growth and moving from a grade of D to a C.

In a news release, New Hanover County Schools Superintendent Charles Foust credited the district’s teachers for the gains.

"We removed barriers for our teachers so that they could focus on instruction,” Foust said in the release. “Those educators were the driving force behind this achievement, and they deserve all the recognition. Our district continues to have the clear goal of ensuring that all students, regardless of their zip code, receive a high-quality, rigorous education.”

The state also examines data from public charter schools and lab schools.

There are seven charter schools in New Hanover County, which are not part of the New Hanover County Schools district. According to state accountability data, none of those schools exceeded growth and four met growth. Schools meeting growth expectations included Wilmington Preparatory Academy, Classical Charter Schools of Wilmington, Island Montessori Charter School, and Girls Leadership Academy of Wilmington.

Wilmington Preparatory Academy, Classical Charter Schools of Wilmington, and Wilmington School of the Arts were all designated as low-performing schools for the 2022-2023 and are on the state’s list of continually low-performing charter schools. While Girls Leadership Academy of Wilmington is also designated as a continually low-performing charter school, it saw improvement this year, moving from a school performance grade of D to a C.

There is also one “lab school” in New Hanover County. According to the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s website, this is an alternative-education choice that “aims to provide enhanced educational programming to students in low-performing schools and to plan demonstration sites for the preparation of future teachers and school administrators.”

Accountability data shows that the lab school in New Hanover County, D.C. Virgo Preparatory Academy, did not meet academic growth expectations in 2022-2023 and received a school performance grade of F, landing the school on the state’s list of low-performing schools.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Grades for New Hanover County Schools in 2022-23