Sullivan schools earn Level 5 growth, but lower middle school and attendance ratings

BLOUNTVILLE — The good news for Sullivan County Schools Report Card for the 2021-22 school year is that the system overall got a Level 5 in growth, the highest attainable.The bad news is that the system, like others in Northeast Tennessee, struggled at the middle school level academically in growth and overall with attendance. The system is working on improving those areas, both possible legacies of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.At Thursday's Board of Education meeting, Sullivan County Director of Schools Evelyn Rafalowski gave the board an abbreviated online tour of the 2022 Report Card that went live online Monday Nov. 28.The report is for all schools and districts online at https://www.tn.gov/education/data/report-card.html. It allows searching for any public school system or individual school in Tennessee on everything from academics to attendance, enrollment.The Sullivan County report card is online at https://tdepublicschools.ondemand.sas.com/district/00820.One caveat is that the academic numbers include only math and English language arts, not social studies and science.SULLIVAN GROWTH RESULTSOverall, the system of 8,208 students last school year got an "advancing" label in the report, the second-highest ranking behind "exemplary" and ahead of "satisfactory," "marginal" and "in need of improvement."Rafalowski said schools traditionally have struggled with middle school academic performance. Aside from COVID, she said another reason is that the transition from fifth grade in elementary school to sixth grade in middle school is a big change that often results with lagging academic performance."Middle school is challenging," Rafalowski said of middle schoolers, many of whom faced new faculty and staff, different buildings and new friends and surroundings.The school year marked the consolidations that formed Central Middle out of Holston and Blountville middle schools and Sullivan Heights Middle out of Sullivan Gardens and Colonial Heights middle schools. Also in January of 2020, Sullivan East Middle was formed from the merger of Bluff City and Holston Valley middle schools.Board member Matthew Spivey point out that Kingsport City Schools had the same type of lower rating at the middle school level, and Rafalowski said Northeast Tennessee as a whole had a middle school academic performance drop.In growth, the overall Level 5 included Level 5 in grades kingergarten-5 and grades 9-12 but a Level 2 in grades 6-8.Board member Mary Rouse recalled that when she was principal of the former Holston Valley Middle, it went against the trend with no discernable drop in performance by sixth graders followed by a drop for seventh graders, the opposite of the norm.ATTENDANCEIn attendance, the system got 94.6% which was a 2.0 out of a possible 4.0, the goal being 95% or higher.Assistant Director of Schools Angie Buckles said the definition of chronically absent was missing 10% of the days a year or 17.6.Board member Mark Ireson asked why a 2.0 would reflect only .4% short of the goal. Buckles responded that the state is strict on the 95% or higher. The absenteeism makes no allowances or variances for students who are quarantined or at home for COVID, flu, illness or injuries, nor does it make allowances for excused absences.As an aside, the school board at its meeting Thursday had first reading of a mandatory Emergency Preparedness Plan that includes a once-a-year drill on how virtual school would function.And the board also approved a policy change in a Virtual Education Program that allows school systems to have two virtual days a semester for weather, illness and such issues.In addition, Chairman Randall Jones presented the board a 2023 legislative packet from the Tennessee School Boards Association or TSBA, which suggests school boards pass resolution endorsing specifics for which TSBA is to lobby.Among the list are a proposed to restore more local control of local school systems, as well as another proposal to amend a state law mandating third graders not reading at grade level be held back unless they go to summer school.The amendment would give school systems latitude in allow school personnel to consider benchmark and other testing and evaluation results in those decisions.The law change, effective for the 2022-23 school year, is based on the idea that in third grade students no longer are learning to read as much as they are reading to learn.Another possible change is mandating the state to release growth and academic achievement scores in May or June instead of December. Rouse said by the time the information is released, it is too late in the 2022-23 school year to make building-level changes to address the numbers.