Seven of the nine Bryan County Schools achieved Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for the 2007-2008 school year. AYP is based on student performance on the CRCT and student attendance for grades 1-8 schools and the high school graduation tests in English/language arts and mathematics and graduation rates for 9-12 schools.

Bryan County Middle School and Bryan County High School, despite appeals to the Georgia Department of Education, did not make the AYP goal.

What does this mean for the students at each of these schools? Bryan County Middle School: Bryan County Middle School met the academic goals for making AYP. Bryan Middle did not meet the standard for its second indicator-attendance.

However, since BCMS has been in a Needs Improvement (NI) status before and did not meet AYP for two consecutive years, the school must offer its students school choice and supplemental education services (SES).

Information will come directly from the school concerning the options that students and parents have concerning these choices.

Bryan County High School: While Bryan County High School did not achieve AYP status based on its students’ performance on the Georgia High School Graduation Tests (GHSGT) in English/language arts and mathematics, there is not the requirement that BCHS offer either school choice or supplemental education services. BCHS did meet the standard for its second indicator-graduation rate. Bryan County High School will be implementing strategies for improving the performance of its junior students on the GHSGT and meeting AYP requirements.

During the 2005-2006 school year Bryan County High School did not meet Annual Yearly Progress benchmarks, as set by the federal government. The area that was not met was in the percentage of students graduating with a regular education diploma.

According to the AYP federal law, if a school does not meet a benchmark two consecutive years the school will be placed on the "Needs Improvement" List and face penalties.

During the 2006-2007 school year, according to AYP standards, BCHS had to improve the graduation rate or be placed on the N.I. List.

BCHS improved its graduation rate to 72 percent. This exceeded the benchmark score of 65 percent. Thus by meeting this benchmark BCHS would not be a N.I. school.

BCHS did not meet the standards in the academic areas of Math and English. The students scored a passing rate of 85 percent and 88 percent respectively.

The passing score for each of these tests is 500 or more. The state of Georgia accepts this score as meeting the requirement for graduation.

According to AYP each student had to make a score of 511 or better in English and 516 or better in Math for the test to be considered an acceptable score.

This means you could pass the test with a 500, but if you did not make high enough in Math (516+) and English (511+) the students’ test score would not be considered a passing score by the federal government.

The current 2007-2008 school year BCHS is considered a school that does not meet AYP standards, but is not on the N.I. List.

BCHS has no penalties against it at this time. The recent newspaper article that included BCHS as a N.I. school is incorrect.

We want the community to know we are working extremely hard to correct our academic issues and we expect to improve this year.Written by Harold Roach, BCHS principal

Editor's note: See our correction on page 2.