Leon County School officials are breathing sighs of relief after getting a better-than-expected report card from the state. The Department of Education released school grades for elementary, middle and combination schools. This year’s scores showed a significant drop statewide.
Across Florida, 38 percent of schools saw their grades fall. In Leon County, the number was closer to 30-percent. The Leon County School District’s Scotty Crowe says, this year’s school grades could have been much worse:
“We at one point had even braced ourselves to see 50-percent of our schools to lose a grade with the new rigor, the new test, and the cut scores being elevated. And to see that and to surpass that, we felt good,” said The Leon School District’s Scotty Crowe.
More than 60-percent of Leon’s schools earned A’s or B’s. In the run-up to Wednesday’s release of the school grades, state officials had warned of lower scores due to students taking harder FCAT tests. Statewide, 985 schools saw their grades go down, but a rule adopted by the state board of education prevented grades from falling by more than one letter.
