Katie Hansen has been on cloud nine since School Superintendent LaShakia Moore called her early this morning to tell her what no Buddy Taylor Middle School principal has heard in 15 years: that her school–the school Hansen took over as a rookie principal exactly a year ago–finally got an A rating again.
Cloud nine above Flagler County has been a busy place since: for the first time in seven years and only the second time in 15 years, Flagler County schools, too, are again rated an A district in Florida, one of 34 out of 67 districts to score an A.
“I am very proud of our entire district and all of their hard work,” School Board Chair Christy Chong said. Just last night, in a candidate forum, Chong had predicted that “we are on track to solidly earn an A district for Flagler County.” She termed it a “powerful boost for our entire county.”
This morning she added: “I would like to say to our dedicated Superintendent Lashakia Moore, teachers, hardworking staff, and especially our incredible students: thank you. Your commitment and hard work has made this possible. This is great news for our entire community. It’s a great day and I’m very proud of everyone for making this possible. “
Twenty-three districts received a B, 10 received a C. None got a D or an F. (No grades were awarded during the covid pandemic, in 2020 and 2021.)
Of equal significance for the county, every school in Flagler was rated A or B, with Flagler Palm Coast High School, under the principalship of Bobby Bossardet, getting its first A in 12 years and Buddy Taylor Middle School, under the principalship of Katie Hansen, getting its first A in 15 years.
Matanzas High School, Indian Trails Middle School, Belle Terre Elementary and Old Kings Elementary also were A-rated. Old Kings, under the principalship of Jessica Fries, extended its A streak to five years in a row, and Indian Trails, under the principalship of Ryan Andrews, did so for the eighth year running, and for 19 of the last 20 years (it got B in 2016.) Imagine School at Town Center, the publicly funded, privately run charter school, returned to a B after a rare dip into C territory last year.
“I’m super proud of the hard work of our faculty and our staff,” Superintendent LaShakia Moore said this morning. “It represents the collective efforts of the entire organization. We’re super proud of our students and we’re thankful for our parents and community that continue to support us each day. This is just the beginning.”
The last superintendent who managed an A in the district was Jim Tager, who happened to have forged Moore’s administrative path, appointing her principal at Rymfire and predicting that she would become superintendent. He has since predicted that this is just the beginning for Moore, too, in essence suggesting that Flagler County will have a hard time holding on to her.
Hansen had been confident that her school would be an A when scores improved in all nine of the components that go into a school’s grade. In two of those components, scores improved by double digits, including reading skills for the lowest quartile.
“Of course we’ve been tracking our data since PM3 testing was concluded, so we had some hope. We knew we had shown growth in every single category,” Hansen said, referring to the Progress Monitoring 3 assessment in the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) program. “My reaction was ecstatic. I am just incredibly proud to be part of the Eagle family. I have been jumping up and down.”
Hansen attributed a large share of the success to the “Eagle advisory” method–“Focused on interventions and supports and enrichments for our students, really dialing into making sure we were providing what our students needed based on test scores from last year,” Hansen said. “It really honestly comes down to the commitment of the teachers and staff who embraced this change to Eagle Advisory and this idea of ‘flight mode always on.’ They brought their best effort every day.”
The celebration at FPC has been even more pronounced, since it has Bossardet, the FPC principal who isn’t shy about wearing his emotions on his sleeves. “This is only the third time in our school’s history that we’ve earned this distinction, and every one of you should be incredibly proud,” he wrote his faculty and staff.
“Before we celebrate, I need you to hear me,” Boossardet wrote, breaking up his lines into paragraphs with almost every sentence, for emphasis and visual intonation, like this:
“This belongs to you. Every single one of you!
“Whether you’re in the classroom, our main office, the cafeteria, transportation, maintenance, technology, student services, security, athletics, or one of the countless roles behind the scenes that most people will never see, you made this happen. Great schools are never built by one person or one department. They are built by people who believe in kids, choose kids, and do whatever it takes for kids.
“Our kids are who we are.
“Our people are who we are.
“Today’s grade doesn’t define us.
“Today, the State finally recognized what I’ve always known. FPC is an “A” school because we have “A” kids, “A” people, and an “A” Staffulty. Thank you for proving it.”
The email goes on, because it’s Bossardet, and because he’d earned the right, after his appointment as FPC principal four years ago, at the same time that Moore was elevated to deputy superintendent. He, too, insisted: “This is only the beginning,” stressing how FPC doesn’t chase the standard, “We are THE STANDARD,” and finishing with “I love each and every one of you. Thank you for all you do for our kids and for each other.”
The school district sent a quick release announcing the news shortly after 9 a.m., and noting a few of the state Department of Education’s talking points–that 76 percent of all schools earned an A or a B, up from 71 percent last year, and that 60 percent of all schools increased their grade from the prior year or maintained an A.
School Board member Lauren Ramirez initially reacted in Lauren Ramirez fashion in a text: “Whoohooo!!!” which probably echoed a familiar reaction across the district. She then said: “This achievement belongs to our entire Flagler Schools family. Our “A” reflects the dedication of our students, teachers, administrators, staff, families, and our entire community! We all worked together with a shared goal. I couldn’t be prouder of Team Flagler and all that we have accomplished. Thank you to all who never gave up, didn’t slow down, and believed in the process. As Ms. Moore said, our Excellence has been earned!”
Fellow-Board member Janie Ruddy credited the hard work of “our collective team” and the “several years of continuous improvement, focused on consistent strategies,” as well as Moore’s stance that “every student is counted and our results are genuine without moving groups of students into lower performing grade/subject areas to stack the deck.” Ruddy noted that the achievement was in spite of challenges such as a “changing student population comprised of a higher percentage of students requiring special services and a score cutoff two points higher than last year.
Taking the longer, more analytical view, as she often does on the board, Ruddy added the sort of perspective that tends to be lost amid the hothouse cheers: “While everyone should be celebrating this accomplishment, my commitment is to push for increased achievement against national measures. Without diluting our current success, I wish to highlight that Florida overall lags the nation many areas, specifically in middle grades performance based on 2024 NAEP data. Ever since we returned to Florida generated standards, we are measuring ourselves against our own definition or level of rigor with an assessment of our own making. My commitment to the community and district is to strive for excellence measured against national benchmarks. Beyond the A rating, I look more closely at the learning gains as the school scores and district letter grades are fluid based upon the number of schools in the state achieving and a rating. The Florida law states that when a certain percentage of districts are A rated they move the cutoff boundary higher or sometimes lower. For example, next year the cut of will be 70 percent.”
Flagler County School Grades, 2005-2025
| School | 2005 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bunnell Elementary | A | B | B | A | A | B | B | A | B (C)* | A | B | C | C | C | C | C | C | B | B | B |
| Belle Terre Elementary | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | B | B | B | A | A | B | B | B | A | |
| Old Kings Elementary | A | A | A | A | A | B | A | A | B | A | A | C | A | B | B | A | A | A | A | A |
| Rymfire Elementary | B | A | B | C | A | A | B (c)* | A | B | B | B | C | B | C | B | B | B | B | ||
| Wadsworth Elementary | A | A | B | A | B | B | A | A | A | A | A | B | C | C | B | B | B | B | B | B |
| Imagine | D | A | C | A | B | B | B | B | B | B | B | B | B | B | C | B | ||||
| Indian Trails Middle | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | B | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | |
| Buddy Taylor Middle | B | A | A | A | A | A | A | B | C | C | B | C | C | C | C | C | C | B | C | A |
| Flagler-Palm Coast High | C | B | C | A | D | B | B | B | A | B | B | C | B | B | B | C | B | B | B | A |
| Mantanzas High | C | D | A | B | B | B | A | A | B | A | B | B | B | B | B | B | A | A | A | |
| iFlagler | B | B | A | A | C | I | ||||||||||||||
| District | B | A | A | A | A | B | B | B | B | B | B | B | A | B | B | B | B | A |
(*) In 2013, the state Board of Education agreed to pad grades in such a way as to prevent them from falling by more than one letter grade. More than 20 percent of schools benefited from the padding, including Rymfire and Bunnell elementaries in Flagler, whose grades would have been a C if the actual standards were applied.
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