Dr. Greg Laws, the districtschool accountability presenter, briefed the Martin County School Board at its Aug. 5 workshop on how the Florida Department of Education calculates school and district grades and on local areas the district will target for growth.

Laws outlined how elementary, middle and high school grades are constructed from multiple componentsachievement and learning gains in English/language arts (ELA) and math, science and social studies components, middle-school acceleration and high-school college and career acceleration and graduation rate. He noted that some metrics lag a year and that certain components count twice (third-grade ELA appears in elementary and district calculations).

Laws said elementary schools combine component percentages that in his example total 61.5 (rounded to 62 for an A), middle schools need about 63.5 (rounded to 64), and high schools need about 64.5 (rounded to 65) under the revised state scale. He emphasized two operational rules: a component must include at least 10 tested students to count, and schools must test at least 95 percent of eligible students to qualify for a letter grade.

Laws described learning gains and lowest-quartile learning-gain calculations, saying gains are measured year-to-year by achievement-level changes and by subcategory moves within a level. He explained that the lowest-quartile group is determined by ranking students by score and taking roughly the bottom 25 percent for each assessment. For high schools, he noted the college-and-career-acceleration and graduation-rate components use the previous-year cohort.

On changes, Laws said the state updated the grading scale this year: because 82 percent of high schools statewide earned an A or B, the state raised the A threshold for high schools and districts to 65 percent. He also flagged that the Florida Standards Alternate Assessment is now called the Florida Alternate Assessment, and that certain concordant/comparative test scores (for example, PSAT 10, preACT and CLT 10) have been recently added as options to meet graduation-testing requirements.

For locally actionable items, Laws singled out third-grade ELA (which counts twice) and districtwide ELA achievement across grades 4through 10, plus targeted growth in grades 5 and 8 science. He said many middle schools will add at least one section of honors biology to support acceleration metrics and that high schools are expanding pathways that count toward college-and-career acceleration. Laws also reiterated participation and cohort rules for English-language learners and students taking alternate assessments.

Board members asked for detail on tracking students who are in the lowest quartile in third grade and how the district follows their progress through high school. Laws said schools receive lists of students likely to be in the lowest quartile at the start of the year so interventions can be targeted; he added that the largest measurable shifts appear at the staterequired stopgaps in third grade and in 10th-grade graduation assessments.

The presentation included district examples showing that, under the newly adjusted state scales, the district would remain an A if current performance holds. Laws provided links to the Department of Educationguide to calculating school and district grades and to parent-facing materials.

Board Chair and members thanked Laws for the briefing; the presentation was informational only and produced no formal board action.