Jay earns an overall A rating

Jay Schools received another A rating Wednesday from the Indiana Department of Education, though three individual schools saw their letter grades drop.
“I’m pleased, and I’m not surprised,” superintendent Tim Long said this morning. “Our students perform very high overall, and we’re pleased with that. But we still have room for improvement.”
South Adams received A grades across the board for the first time since 2011.
“It’s gratifying that the department of education recognizes the excellent education that South Adams Schools provides,” said superintendent Scott Litwiller. “Our students really do a great job of studying and learning the curriculum, and to top it off … we’re blessed with great parents who reinforce the importance of education at home.
“Overall we’re pleased, and we’ll continue to work hard to earn these grades again.”
Jay County Christian Academy saw its grade improve to a C from grades of F the two previous years.
The state’s latest report card gave Jay School Corporation seven A’s, two B’s and a D.
The D went to Pennville Elementary School, which has the smallest enrollment in the district. Redkey Elementary School and Jay County High School both received grades of B.
The size of the schools played a role in those grades, Long noted.
“In the smaller buildings you’re always going to have some degree of potential change,” he said.

“It only takes a couple of students to change you up or down.”
Because student improvement is a major factor in the current state letter grade system, “you get a B if you basically stay the same,” Long said.
“On the corporation grade, they put all the students together,” he added. “Overall as a group our students improved to keep an A level.”
The middle school continued to lead the strong performance for South Adams as it earned an A for the seventh straight year. The elementary school repeated its A grade from a year ago.
The high school returned to an A grade after earning a B in 2013. It had been an A school in both 2012 and ’11.
SAHS was originally given a C last year, but the grade was raised after an appeal.
“I don’t think it’s so much any specific thing we did differently, it’s just a team effort,” Litwiller said. “Our support staff, our administrators work hard to create the conditions where teachers can teach and students can learn.”
He added that South Adams has put more of a focus on using analytics to help individual students in areas in which they are struggling.
Last year all Jay Schools and the corporation posted grades of A. Two years ago, all schools posted grades of A except Westlawn Elementary, which had a B.
“We’re continuing to stay with our data package,” Long said of systems used to track and improve student academic performance. “We monitor our metrics every year.”
The state’s letter grade system was instituted under former Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett and has undergone revision under his successor, Glenda Ritz. Further changes are likely in the future.
“It seems like every year they change something,” said Long.
Litwiller noted that such changes generally lead to a drop in grades and that South Adams is studying the new assessments in an effort to be prepared.
“We’re trying to make changes in our classroom instruction to hopefully minimize the dip,” he said.