By Morgan Bryce
Editor
The Opelika City School System saw its overall grade increase from a 78 to an 84 in the Alabama Department of Education’s yearly report card released last month, five points above the statewide average.
OCS’s three primary schools, Carver, Jeter and Southview, did not have released grades for the 2016-17 school year, but posted 80, 90 and 85 averages for the 2017-18 school year respectively. Opelika High School boosted its score from an 81 to 83 average, but others saw significant increases:
- Morris Avenue Intermediate, 19-point average increase from 71 to 90
- West Forest Intermediate, 18-point average increase from 62 to 80
- Opelika Middle School, 14-point increase from 70 to 84
- and Northside School, 5-point increase from 80 to 85.
OCS Superintendent Dr. Mark Neighbors praised the system’s administration from top to bottom for its achievements and raising the overall quality of education for Opelika’s children.
“Our folks work really hard: our curriculum people, instructional coaches as well as our teachers and kids. We’re very pleased with those (numbers) … and we always say this: ‘we teach to a standard, we don’t teach to a test,’” Neighbors said. “It’s important for our kids to do well and we applaud the efforts of our teachers, coaches and principals who do a good job of upholding those standards.”
A law requiring letter grades report cards for city and county school districts was passed in 2012 by Alabama lawmakers as a way to determine which schools were succeeding or needing to improve their overall academic standards. The first wave of report cards was released in December of the 2016-17 school year.
Overall, Lee County’s school system improved by one point, moving from a 78 to 79 average.
Following is a list of other Lee County schools listed by community or city:
Auburn: - Auburn Early Education Center, 92 (no data from 2016-17 school year)
- Auburn Junior High, 2-point increase from 90 to 92
- Auburn High, 6-point increase from 85 to 91
- Cary Woods Elementary, 94 (no data from 2016-17 school year)
- Dean Road Elementary, 93 (no data from 2016-17 school year)
- Drake Middle, 2-point decrease from 92 to 90
- Margaret Yarborough Elementary, 2-point increase from 96 to 98
- Ogletree Elementary, 4-point decrease from 96 to 92
- Pick Elementary, 1-point decrease from 95 to 94
- Richland Elementary, 98 (no data from 2016-17 school year)
- Wrights Mill Elementary, 3-point decrease from 96 to 93
Beauregard: - Beauregard Elementary, no change at 89
Beauregard High, 10-point increase from 67 to 77 - Sanford Middle, 1-point increase from 77 to 78
Beulah: - Beulah Elementary, 5-point decrease from 84 to 79
- Beulah High, 8-point increase from 73 to 81
Loachapoka: - Loachapoka High, 3-point increase from 69 to 72
Smiths Station: - Wacoochee Elementary, 2-point increase from 78 to 80
- West Smiths Station Elementary, 4-point increase from 78 to 82
- South Smiths Station Elementary, 1-point decrease from 90 to 89
- Smiths Station Freshman Center, 80 (no data from 2016-17 school year)
- Smiths Station Junior High, 11-point increase from 76 to 87
- East Smiths Station Elementary, 1-point decrease from 83 to 82
- Smiths Station High, 4-point increase from 76 to 80.
To view how other school systems performed, visit www.alsde.edu and click on the “AL Education Report Card” tab on the website’s homepage.