The Alabama State Department of Education has released the initial dataset for the 2017-18 state report card. The numbers show that Chambers County schools have improved in the past year.

Chambers County’s overall score for 2017-18 was a 79, synonymous to a ‘C’ in letter grading, which is up from 2016-17’s score of 76. The state board of education’s assigned grade is based on educational aspects such as academic achievement, academic growth, graduation rates and chronic absenteeism.

“I was pleased that our overall score increased,” said Superintendent Dr. Kelli Hodge in an email. “We still have improvements to make and still need to study the data, but I’m happy we made improvement overall. We missed having a ‘B’ system-wide by less than half a point.”

While a full report from the state board of education won’t be available until Dec. 31, each school in the area, including those in the Lanett School System, were given their own individual grades. The Lanett School System received an overall grade of 71. Full score breakdowns are as follows:

CHAMBERS COUNTY

Fairfax Elementary School, 79; Five Points Elementary School, 79; Huguley Elementary School, 87; Lafayette Eastside Elementary School, 68; Lafayette High School, 68; Lafayette Lanier Elementary School, 75; J.P. Powell Middle School, 69; Bob Harding-Shawmut Elementary, 75 and Valley High School, 80.

LANETT

W. O. Lance Elementary, 65; Lanett Senior High School, 69 and Lanett Junior High School, 72.

Lanett School Superintendent Phillip Johnson was not available for comment as of this report.

In the released report, State Superintendent of Education Dr. Eric Mackey said that the data provides a window into Alabama’s standings for stakeholders to view.

“Overall, we are pleased with the academic growth that we see across the state,” he said in the report. “It is a testament to the dedication of our teachers, principals, and all those who support their work that student performance continues to rise. As state superintendent, I am grateful for these hardworking individuals in our local schools who improve the trajectory of children’s lives every day. We believe that our best days and highest levels of achievement lie ahead of us, not behind, and we look forward to working with our state policymakers and lawmakers in 2019 to make sure that we are providing ever better resources and supports for our schools.”

Mackey also touched on what the overall 2018 State Accountability report means for the schools being assessed.

“[It] tells us something valuable about a school or school system, but it does not tell us everything about that school or system,” Mackey said. “Based primarily on a particular assessment, it is a snapshot in time. When stacked together year after year, similar to snapshots of your family, these pictures of school academic performance can certainly be used to monitor academic progress and growth. But when we describe our children, we use more than snapshots; we talk about their personalities, struggles, challenges, aspirations, successes.”