End of Grade Tests Better; Vance Has Exited Low Performance Status; Closing Gap to State Averages; Vance Improving Quicker Than Several State Averages

On Wednesday, September 28, 2016, Superintendent Anthony Jackson addressed a crowd of about 70 business and community leaders.  In his opening remarks he said, “I want you to leave with a renewed commitment to the schools and the community.  Put your name on every child you encounter.”

Discussed was student achievement, safe and orderly schools, quality of education, effective and efficient operations and how to be good educators in the 21st century environment.

The luncheon event was co-hosted by the Henderson Rotary Club and the Vance County Public School Foundation.

Jackson also discussed aspirations for the 17 local public schools for the current school year and provided those in attendance with a “Strategic Roadmap” for the next five years.

He told those in attendance he wanted young adults “ready for society the Monday after graduation.”  Jackson wants feedback from business and community leaders about how to better prepare students for entry into the local workforce.

And Jackson said a supportive community is key, that the mindset here needs to be one of looking at the improvements and tying them to excellence.

Some of the information shared by Jackson included:

• an 82 percent graduation rate for Vance County Schools for 2015-2016
• members of the Class of 2016 graduating with over $7.5 million in scholarships to attend colleges in the fall
• the Vance County Early College High School completed the 2015-2016 school year as an “A” school based on the N.C. School Performance Grade recognition system
• Aycock Elementary School and the STEM Early High School were both “B” schools for 2015-2016 for N.C. Performance Grades
• no local schools were judged as “F” schools for the 2015-2016 school year
• students in grades 5 and 8 increased their scores overall on the N.C. science end-of-grade test by more than 13 percent last year
• students in grades 3-5 improved their state end-of-grade scores in reading and math by: an increase of 15 percent in proficiency at New Hope Elementary; an increase of more than 10 percent in proficiency at Clarke Elementary; an increase of 8.4 percent in proficiency at Aycock Elementary; and an increase of 7 percent in proficiency at both Dabney Elementary and Pinkston Street Elementary
• student proficiency on state end-of-grade testing in reading and math increased by seven percent at the STEM Early High School and almost six percent each at Eaton-Johnson Middle and Henderson Middle last year.

“All of this took a lot of hard work,” Jackson said. “Our teachers and students should be commended for their accomplishments. This doesn’t happen overnight.  We want to continue to increase our student achievements at a greater rate than students are growing across the state. We recognize we have a gap between our achievements and state achievements, but if we can continue to grow as we did last year we can eliminate the gap over the next few years.”

Jackson acknowledged continuing to make substantial student achievements and closing the gap between proficiency by local students and state proficiency will take more hard work. “But, I’m convinced we can get it done,” he said.

Jackson continued to stress the school system’s theme for 2016-2017 of “Excellence . . . Without Excuse!” He also repeated the increasingly popular slogan of “I’m Vance County Proud. Are you?”

(Editor’s Note – WIZS News attended the luncheon.  The article above was written from our notes and includes excerpts written by Vance County Schools Public Information Officer Terri Hedrick as well.  WIZS News encourages you to read the full VCS article written by Hedrick and posted on the VCS Web Page by clicking on the link below.)

Vance County School State of Schools Luncheon Article as written and posted by Terri Hedrick