Excitement in the Knox County Public Schools continues to grow as staff learns of the latest updates to Unbridled Learning results for last school year.
Following the public data release of Unbridled Learning in October, school districts conducted what is referred to as “data cleanup” to ensure that the test scores of all students were correctly reported and all students that a school is accountable for is correctly identified on rosters and in reporting.
Knox County’s two high schools experienced the most data cleanup as they verified college and career readiness, the number of days each student was enrolled in their school, and other accountability measures. The result of that cleanup was gains for both schools that has now been approved by the Kentucky Department of Education.
Lynn Camp High becomes the district’s fourth proficient school
High school teachers at Lynn Camp were all smiles on Monday, November 16, as district leaders went door to door congratulating them on being the latest proficient school in Knox County. Meanwhile, principal Anthony Pennington and assistant principals Nicki Hammons and Scott Prewitt took a moment out of their day to receive a banner officially declaring the school being proficient.
Lynn Camp High experienced a 1 point gain following data cleanup, moving their public released score of 69.4 and classification of “Needs Improvement” to 70.4 and being declared a “Proficient” school.
According to Amy Bays, assessment coordinator for the school district, just one or two students in a school the size of Lynn Camp can result in huge changes to reported data.
“Every score counts, and they all add up,” Bays shared with principals and school level assessment coordinators.
The recognition of Lynn Camp’s high school as a proficient school comes at the same time that the Southeast Southcentral Education Cooperative (SESC) recognized the school’s elementary grades for their progress last year.
SESC Executive Director David Johnson along with Kentucky education commissioner Stephen Pruitt recognized Lynn Camp’s achievements during the organization’s board meeting on Thursday, November 14. Present to receive the awards were principal Pennington and Knox superintendent Kelly Sprinkles.
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Lynn Camp Elementary was the recipient of two banners during the meeting, one for being a Top 10 in Improvement on the 2015 K-PREP assessment and a second banner for being SESC’s most improved school on the 2015 K-PREP. Twenty-one school districts in southeastern and southcentral Kentucky are members of the educational cooperative.
Knox Central no longer a focus school for the Department of Education
The hard work of students, faculty, and staff at Knox Central High School during the school turnaround process continues to be seen as the school loses the classification of being a “focus school” by the state.
The public release of data in October was celebratory for Knox Central as they learned that the school was exiting priority status, a title that had been with them since 2012.
The school turnaround process, triggered by the classification of being a priority school three years ago, resulted in the Department of Education’s on-site assistance to help move the school towards proficiency.
Three years later, the final data for the 2014-2015 academic year shows that although Knox Central did not meet proficiency, they were only points away from the title – but close enough to remove the “focus” label from their school.
“I want to commend the high schools for their diligence with CCR (college and career readiness),” said Bays. “At the high school level, CCR is our district’s biggest difference maker in overall scores.”
For Knox Central that meant moving from a score of 69.6 and being classified as a “Focus School” to 70.0 and no longer having that classification.
Knox Central was among those honored by the SESC education cooperative last week. Tim Melton, principal at the school, accepted a banner from SESC for being a Top 10 High School in Improvement.
District scores increase as a result of data cleanup
Increases at Knox Central and Lynn Camp High in their reported scores also resulted the district’s Unbridled Learning scores to gain.
“The district came up two tenths of a point with these changes as well,” reported Bays.
The overall accountability score of 65.4 that was reported in October increased to 65.6 as a result of the data cleanup.
“This means that we are only six tenths of a point away from being a proficient district,” Bays shared with excitement.
“Everyone from preschool up contributes to this success through excellence in teaching,” said Bays.
The final Unbridled Learning Accountability and Assessment report for Knox County and other schools in the state can be found in the Open House section of the Kentucky Department of Education’s website at www.education.ky.gov.
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Photos from Lynn Camp’s Proficiency Celebration can be viewed in the KCPS Photo Gallery:
