Twenty-nine Florida school districts–or 43 percent of districts in the state–scored an A this year. The Flagler County school district is not among them. The district notched another B, its ninth in the last 10 years that the state Department of Education has awarded school grades. It did not do so in 2020 and 2021, the years of the Covid pandemic.
The district last had an A in 2019, and before that had a streak of A’s between 2008 and 2011, when Bill Delbrugge was superintendent. Flagler schools are among 22 districts that scored a B, out of 67. Thirteen scored a C, and three a D (counties named after the nation’s founders: Jefferson, madison and Hamilton.)
The district has not returned to an A, but errant claims that the district was performing poorly–claims that swirled around the tenure of former Superintendent Cathy Mittelstadt and that were used to fabricate a case against her effectiveness, especially by the local chamber of commerce, proved off the mark. The school board last summer refused to renew her contract, essentially firing her.
Nevertheless, when a plurality of districts across the state score an A and Flagler does not, it makes it harder for the district to claim, as its motto likes to claim, that it is a “premier learning organization,” or that it promotes a “culture of excellence.”
This year’s school grades are based on a new method, new standards and a new test–the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking, or FAST–and are not strictly comparable to previous years. The new test is based on the state’s newly implemented Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking.
The new approach moves away from high-stakes or year-end testing to a progress-monitoring system that “provides teachers, students and parents real-time, immediate and actionable data at the beginning, middle and end of the school year to drive student improvement,” the Department of Education said today in a statement accompanying the new grades.
As such, this year’s grades will have no negative consequences, though not a single district in the state failed. A few elementary schools around the state got an F, but hardly any middle or high schools, and none in Flagler. “Schools and Districts will now use their 2022-23 baseline grades from the FAST assessment to make changes in instructional practices that will lead to better outcomes for students,” the state says.
Flagler Palm Coast High School returned to a B after dropping to C last year, but barely so: it got the minimum required points to clear the hurdle to a B. FPC is the largest and most diverse school in the district. Matanzas High School kept a B for the sixth straight year, with a slightly better showing than FPC in total points. Indian Trails Middle School is an A for the fifth year in a row. The school has had less than an A only once in its history, a B in 2016. Buddy Taylor Middle School remained a C for its sixth straight year.
Among elementary schools, Old Kings Elementary kept the A it got last year, after a couple of years before that as a B school. Belle Terre Elementary, once a reliable A, dropped to a B again. Rymfire Elementary improved from a C to a B. Wadsworth remained a B school. And Bunnell Elementary is again a C, as it has been for the past six straight years. It was last an A school in 2014.
iFlagler, the virtual school, was not given a grade this year, and Imagine School at Town center, the charter school–it is publicly funded but privately run–got a B for the ninth straight year.
The grades are calculated based on a half dozen criteria, from academic achievement in various disciplines to graduation rate to “college and career acceleration,” which reflects on students who get grades of C or better in dual enrollment and passing grades in Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or AICE classes, or those who earn industry certifications from trade courses.
So for FPC, the graduation rate was 89 percent, students scored an A in science and a B in social studies, but a very low C in math and a passable C in English. For Matanzas, its graduation rate was 94 percent, its math achievements were below FPC’s, and just one point above a D, its C was a bit stronger than FPC’s, and its science and social studies’ achievements were low A’s.
Five components went into the grades in middle schools, and three in elementary schools. In the district’s five elementary schools, students were stronger in math than English in every school, and did fairly well in science. But there are weaker scores in English, with Bunnell’s students at a low C, Rymfire’s barely getting a B, and Old Kings scoring a low A. It is at that sort of granular level that administrators and teachers can use the results as guideposts, since they also know specifically which students scored how.
All grades are available here.
Flagler County School Grades, 2005-2019
| School | 2005 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bunnell Elementary | A | B | B | A | A | B | B | A | B (C)* | A | B | C | C | C | C | C | C | B |
| Belle Terre Elementary | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | B | B | B | A | A | B | B | |
| Old Kings Elementary | A | A | A | A | A | B | A | A | B | A | A | C | A | B | B | A | A | A |
| Rymfire Elementary | B | A | B | C | A | A | B (c)* | A | B | B | B | C | B | C | B | B | ||
| Wadsworth Elementary | A | A | B | A | B | B | A | A | A | A | A | B | C | C | B | B | B | B |
| Imagine | D | A | C | A | B | B | B | B | B | B | B | B | B | B | ||||
| Indian Trails Middle | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | B | 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 |
| Flagler-Palm Coast High | C | B | C | A | D | B | B | B | A | B | B | C | B | B | B | C | B | B |
| Mantanzas High | C | D | A | B | B | B | A | A | B | A | B | B | B | B | B | B | A | |
| iFlagler | B | B | A | A | ||||||||||||||
| District | B | A | A | A | A | B | B | B | B | B | B | B | A | B | B | B |
(*) 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.
The dude says
Giving Flagler County Schools a “B” is very very charitable…
I guess when the sample group is only Floriduh schools it makes even the most horrible system look decent, but Flagler County Schools are bottom of the barrel.
So goes the captain(s), so goes the ship.
Bill C says
Just what is the Florida Dept. of Education measuring with its “new test based on the state’s newly implemented Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking.?… As such, this year’s grades will have no negative consequences, though not a single district in the state failed.” Hooray, Flagler got a B. According to the Orlando Sentinel “New rankings show Florida students are posting some of the lowest SAT scores in America. We’re talking 46th place. Down another 17 points overall to 966, according to the combined reading and math scores shared by the College Board.” More DeSantis smoke and mirrors. Read for yourself:
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2023/12/05/florida-sat-scores-drop-manny-diaz-trolls-maxwell/
Thomas Lattimer says
Amazing the sense of entitlement that leads someone to think a B is a bad grade. Even worse, the people who are outside of the bubble who think they know what’s going on in these classes due to certain headlines. That’s disrespectful to the teachers who are grinding trying to provide for these students district wide.