The perception does not look good for Guthrie Public Schools as the Oklahoma State Department of Education released the grades for all state schools on Wednesday. However, it’s a complicated issue state wide and it’s even more of a complicated issue for the Guthrie school district.
This is the second year of the state issuing the report cards and scores for the district noticeably decreased with one C, three D’s and two F’s.
Guthrie High School scored a 77 (C), the Junior High a 64 (D), Guthrie Upper Elementary 64 (D), Grades 2nd and 3rd graded out at 67 (D), Central 57 (F) and Pre-K and kindergarten scored a 57 (F).
View the breakdown of each Guthrie school.
Governor Mary Fallin says superintendents and teachers of schools receiving a “D” or and “F” should not see the grade as a punishment, but a call to action.
However, Guthrie and a small amount of other similar districts are at a disadvantage when it comes to the A-F report cards due to unique grade center configuration that does not fit into the current legislation that is written.
In a letter to Guthrie parents, Barresi says, “as you have no doubt noted, the “grade” received by your school is lower than you had expected. Because your school district has a unique alignment of grade-band centers that do not include a third and fourth grade, we must derive a different method for reporting performance of these particular sites.”
The statement implies grades were awarded based on the results of student test scores from another site. In other words, the report card does not count improvement of all students and improvement of the bottom quartile since students changed buildings.
Unlike Guthrie, the majority of school districts have kindergarten thru fifth grade in one building and therefore can have a more accurate score. Guthrie has utilized grade centers since the late 1960’s (elementary students are assigned a building by grade rather than region in Guthrie). The state department made no allowances for this grade configuration.
“I agree that this does not make sense,” Barresi said and added that no other options were deemed legally acceptable for the school year.
Guthrie Supt. Dr. Mike Simpson says he has spoken to several members, including Barresi on the state level about the process that he finds his school district in.
Guthrie Public Schools Superintendent Mike Simpson.
“I communicated to the house and senate authors of the bill during the last legislative session but obviously it fell on deaf ears.”
Barresi noted she will continue to improve the state policy.
“I pledge that I will continue to work with educators and state policy experts to review how we can continue improving the system.”
State wide scores show of the 1,785 schools reporting 354 achieved an A, 499 a B, 472 a C, 263 a D and 163 reported an F.
“Our students do not know less than they did, and teachers are not doing a poor job. Far from it,” Barresi said. “Classroom teachers are working hard, responding to more rigorous standards that will help children be prepared for successful and happy lives.”
Simpson says the district will continue to evaluate the results along with the additional measures that are in place, but says the grades are not acceptable.
“The grades are just one of the tools we will use to target improvement of instruction so out students are the ultimate winners at GPS.”
Related story: Guthrie schools graded unfairly by the state
Related story: Guthrie Schools receive their report cards from the state
Welcome to the new “common core” standards!
WTH??? GPS schools are failing. Our state ranks 46 in the nation for education, one of the highest in drop outs, the highest in teen pregnancy and mothers incarcerated. This state and town suck! This is unexceptable Does Anyone care that this is our childrens future? Something needs to done.
vote democrat.