CAMPBELL COUNTY,TN.(WLAF)-Following the release of the ‘letter grades’ published by the Tennessee Department of Education, the local school system offered the following statement:

Campbell County families:

I want to take a moment to share some important information regarding new school “letter grades” that was published by the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE).

In 2016, the Tennessee General Assembly passed a law requiring TDOE to establish a letter-grade (A-F) system for public schools. The legislature has stated that it was their intent to increase transparency for families and stakeholders. Because of challenges related to state testing and COVID-19, letter grades were delayed for many years. However, the state recently announced that they plan to release school letter grades on December 21.

Campbell County has never shrunk from being held accountable, but I do not believe a school’s impact can be represented by a single score. Last year alone, we increased student achievement in all grade bands. All of our scores have improved to pre-COVID levels. The district has improved 11 percentage points in grades 3-5, 7.5 points in grades 6-8, and 12.4 points in grades 9-12 since the 2020-2021 school year. These gains represent the hard work of students and teachers, and we wish the Department of Education had chosen to recognize improvement like they have since the beginning of accountability.

I urge you to consider that the Achievement and Growth in these scores are based on one test that students take at the end of the school year, and they do not represent all of the hard work, success, challenges, and everything else that goes into a school year. While we’ve championed the notion that our students are “more than a test score,” I will also say that our schools, teachers, and students are more than a letter grade.

To accompany this release, we will also be releasing our achievement data that was presented to the school board to show how Campbell County Schools have been improving since 2017 (the authorization of ESSA). In this document, you can view achievement and growth over the years.

You can find that information on our website at https://bit.ly/CC_SY2223_data (and attached to this email)

Jason Horne, Data and Accountability Supervisor, Secondary Supervisor

&

Jennifer Fields, Director of Schools, Campbell County Schools

(WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED 12/22/2023-11:40AM)

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