School accountability grades released

Thursday, March 5, 2020

School accountability grades for the 2018-19 school year were approved Wednesday by the Indiana State Board of Education.

Three county school corporations — South Putnam, North Putnam and Cloverdale — were assigned a B grade for the year, while Greencastle Community Schools was assigned a C.

The grades were assigned on a “hold harmless” basis due to the controversial ILEARN tests that were administered to students for the first time last spring.

With educators, community members and lawmakers all expressing their displeasure with the new testing process, the state enacted a process by which schools were not penalized for any negative impact the new testing might have carried.

Gov. Eric Holcomb signed Public Law 2-2020 on Feb. 12, which requires that a school’s A-F grade for the 2018-2019 school year may not be lower than that same school’s A-F grade for the 2017-2018 school year. The Indiana Department of Education compared the grades and assigned the better grade received by the school between these two school years.

Schools received all performance and accountability data for the 2018-2019 school year regardless of which grade was assigned.

“Consistent with the governor’s request and the action of the General Assembly, these grades reflect the higher of last year’s or this year’s grades as schools and corporations are ‘held harmless’ from the potentially negative impact of their students’ performance on ILEARN this spring,” said B. J. Watts, board chairman.

The complete list of letter grades for the four corporations and their individual schools are as follows:

South Putnam Community Schools: B
Central: B
Fillmore: A
Middle School: C
High School: B

North Putnam Community Schools: B
Bainbridge: C
Roachdale: B
Middle School: B
High School: A

Cloverdale Community Schools: B
Elementary School: B
Middle School: B
High School: A

Greencastle Community School Corp: C
Ridpath: C
Deer Meadow: C
Tzouanakis: C
Middle School: C
High School: B

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