By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
Escambia County High school Principal Dennis Fuqua said last week that his school’s inclusion on Alabama’s “failing schools” list for the second straight year has no effect on how steadily the school’s student population is progressing, as reflected in the recently released Alabama State Report Card for each school.
“Being on that list again does not take away from the great things we have going academically,” Fuqua said. “This list only takes into account one ACT test score from one day of testing, whereas the school report card presents a more comprehensive look at our school’s achievements.”
The test on which the “failing schools” list is based has been declared invalid by the Alabama Department of Education and by the U.S. Department of Education but is still used to judge the academic quality of individual schools. The bottom 6 percent, no matter the overall score, are deemed “failing schools.”
ECHS has shown steady improvement of four points per year on the annual report card and received a grade of C this year and last.
“Each year our overall report card score has increased by four points,” Fuqua noted. “Based on the capability of this year’s junior class, I expect our scores to increase by at least four more points (next year). I have a lot of faith in this current junior class and all of our students.”