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Seminole County's Top-Rated Schools Brace for New Grading Policy


A change in Florida's public school rating system is sending shock waves through local communities. The new policy from the state Board of Education makes it harder for public schools to earn top rankings, and could drop hundreds of schools to a D or F grade. Residents, school officials, and lawmakers in Seminole County are worried a drop in grades could have broad economic implications and cause trouble in an area known for its quality of education.

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Right now, the Seminole County School District has no schools below C. Under the new grading policy, though, two schools would suddenly drop to Ds.

That is bad news for one of the county’s biggest draws, says Seminole Educators' Association president KT Caldwell. “We say in Seminole County we don’t have the ocean to attract people, we don’t have Mickey Mouse or Minnie Mouse to attract business,” she says. “What we have is our good schools, and we have a great reputation.” 

Caldwell says she understands that the state Board of Education's goal is to motivate students with higher accountability standards. But, she warns, there may be unintended consequences if grades drop and funding dries up in communities like Seminole County.

“People are going to move to areas where the schools are the best, and that are not old-fashioned, and that have kept up with trends,” says Caldwell.  “So, we’re hoping that we’ll be still in contention, but it is a concern. It’s a very viable concern.”

The new grading system enjoys strong support in Tallahassee, but some lawmakers still share Caldwell’s apprehension.

David Simmons chairs the Senate Pre-K – 12 education appropriation subcommittee. The Maitland Republican is worried about the neighborhoods around schools affected by the new policy.

“The families living in those school zones are going to be living in an area that is designated a D or F. That’s going to impact their property values dramatically," says Simmons. “It’s going to impact businesses there. It’s going to impact the recruiting of businesses from other states to the state of Florida.”

The new standards will dramatically change school grades statewide. The Board of Education estimates Florida could have nearly five times the amount of D and F schools it has now. In Orange County, the number of D and F schools would increase from 7 to 30.  

Those calculations could change a bit, because they were released just before the Board removed a rule that gave any school an automatic F if more than a quarter of its students were reading below grade level. Now, the school will lose one letter grade instead.

Senator Simmons says he’s comfortable with that.

“I am in favor of higher accountability of our school systems," says Simmons. "At the same time, I do not want to penalize the schools here in the state of Florida for the successes they have obtained.” 

Schools are graded in a variety of subject areas using a complex formula. Simmons says the new rules unfairly punish schools by causing them to lose a letter grade if they don’t show a certain percentage of improvement every year, no matter how much those schools have improved in the past. 

Late last week, he asked the state legislature to step in and delay the grading changes for a year so they could be discussed more thoroughly. But after a weekend sit-down with Governor Rick Scott, Simmons says, he dropped that request in favor of ironing things out in post-session meetings with the governor and the Board of Education.  

One thing he wants to tackle is finding a word other than “failing” to describe all the schools that are expected to drop to an F. He hopes there's a better term to use.

“It may be simply a matter of nomenclature, of properly categorizing and characterizing what the score means,” says Simmons.

There’s no word yet on what Simmons would prefer to call the schools that he says aren’t really failing, or what the standards would be for that classification.

The new Board of Education grading policy is expected to go into effect statewide this spring.

 

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