Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Student Achievement topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
District report shows mixed gains; data specialist explains why growth measures and school ratings can diverge
Summary
District leaders presented report-card results showing some schools improved and others declined. A data specialist explained how the state growth model’s standard-error calculations can produce cases where subgroups meet growth but a school as a whole does not.
District administrators presented the Transylvania County report-card results and school-by-school accountability data at the Oct. 20 board meeting and outlined next steps for schools with lower ratings.
Dr. Fletcher (district staff) reviewed district goals and headline measures, saying the system’s grade-level proficiency (GLP) across tested grades landed at about 57% and that overall growth stood at roughly 56% of schools meeting the district’s growth target. She identified two schools — Brevard Elementary and Brevard Middle — that earned a D rating and said school-improvement plans would focus on targeted supports for those buildings.
Tom Sweet, the district’s assessment and accountability lead, explained why a school can “meet growth in reading, math, science” at subgroup or grade levels yet not meet the overall school growth target. He described the role of prediction models and standard-error measures. “Growth starts with the student,” Sweet said. He noted that standard errors vary by subject and subgroup size; a small subgroup’s larger error band can make individual- and subgroup-level growth easier to meet while the whole-school target becomes harder when the target’s confidence interval narrows.
Administrators pointed to several district strengths — Brevard High’s ACT performance in the Western Region, Rosman Middle’s growth index gains, and targeted gains at schools such as Pisgah Forest — and also identified areas for improvement, including middle-school math (grades 6–7) and new science standards for fifth grade and high-school biology.
The district outlined actions to address the concerns: focused professional development, use of common formative assessments, strategic instruction coaching (with the district instructional coach emphasized for middle-school math and science), and ongoing work on an instructional framework to be completed in early 2026.
Board members asked for longer trend charts going back to 2015 to show pre-COVID baselines; administrators agreed to produce a 10-year trend where available.
