ABC School considering appeal of school grade

The leadership of the Apalachicola Bay Charter School, which has consistently received either an A or a B score over the past 15 years, is weighing an appeal of their C grade to the state in hopes of overcoming the narrow one-point miss.

But regardless of whether that appeal is successful, said Principal Elizabeth Kirvin, the school is pointing to solid achievements of this past school year.

“The school grading criteria changed this year, and our preliminary calculations predicted a B grade,” she said. “While we are disappointed to fall short from a B by one point, we are shining the light on the achievement of our students.

“Our teachers and staff worked incredibly hard this year and our middle school performed well above state average in English Language Arts, Math, Science and our seventh graders had the highest score in the history of ABC in Civics,” she said.

Data from the Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) indicates that in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades, students were at or above state average throughout. The middle school’s performance was particularly strong in math, which among seventh graders was 30 percentage points ahead of the state average.

In contrast, the English and math scores for the third and fourth grades lagged the state average, and in the fifth grade were at par, with science scores in the fifth grade lagging by 5 percentage points.

Kirvin said that an overview shows that “our students scored at or above state average in 10 of 15 assessments and over 30% of our students scored a Level 4 or Level 5.” 

In addition, the percentages of students being at or above state average compared favorably to the two elementary schools in Gulf County.

“Before the school year ended, we were planning for the 2024-25 school year,” she said. “We have hired several phenomenal educators and have a solid plan in place moving forward this year so that our students will achieve their academic and social potential.”