The Marion County School District was among the 17 lowest-performing districts in Florida last school year, earning a “C” grade and graduating one of the lowest percentages of high school students across the state.
This week, the department released its Florida School Accountability Reports, which provide performance grades for schools and districts across the state.
According to the data, Marion County ranked 49th out of 67 districts in the state with a “C” grade, which is one letter lower than the county earned during the previous school year.
“School grades provide an easily understandable way to measure the performance of a school. Parents and the general public can use the school grade and its components to understand how well each school is serving its students,” reads a statement from the Florida Department of Education.
Schools are graded A, B, C, D, or F based on the components for which they have “sufficient data.” A school must test “at least 95% of their students” in order to participate.
District grades are calculated as if the “district’s students are enrolled in one large combination school,” according to the state.
For the 2023-2024 school year, a school or district’s grade may include up to 12 components, including five achievement components, four learning gains components, and additional components for middle school acceleration, graduation rate, and college and career acceleration.
The achievement components are English Language Arts (ELA), Grade 3 ELA, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies, while the learning gains components are “learning gains in ELA,” learning gains in Mathematics, and learning gains for the lowest performing 25% of students in ELA and Mathematics.
The middle school acceleration component is based on the percentage of eligible students who passed a high school level EOC assessment or industry certification, and the graduation rate is based on an adjusted “cohort of ninth grade students and measures whether the students graduate within four years,” according to the department.
The college and career acceleration component is based on the percentage of graduates who earned a passing score on an “acceleration examination,” like an IB or AP test.
Each component is worth up to 100 points in the overall calculation.
The grading scale awards districts an “A” or greater if they earn 64% of the points available or more, a “B” for earning 57% to 63% of the points, and a “C” for earning 44% to 56% of the points, according to the state.
Despite two districts receiving “I” or incomplete grades, during the 2023-2024 school year, the Marion County School District was tied with 16 other school districts that received a “C,” which was the lowest grade this year.
The other 48 districts across the state earned an “A” or “B” grade for the school year, including nearby Alachua (B), Lake (B), and Sumter, which earned its fourth “A” grade in the past five school years.
Although the data does not reflect the graduation rate for the 2023-2024 school year, it does show the most recent data available for the 2022-2023 school year. That school year saw a graduation rate of 78% in Marion County, ranking it 57th out of 67 districts.
Since 2010, the Marion County School District has earned seven “C” grades and six “B” grades, according to the data provided by the department.
In 2023, the district earned a “B” grade and in 2021, no grade was recorded on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Tuesday, Ocala-News.com reported that Marion County School District test scores consistently ranked at the bottom for every subject and every grade that participated in this year’s Florida Assessment of Student Thinking test series.
In the coming days, Ocala-News.com will release additional details about the individual school grades for the 51 institutions in Marion County.