Jay gets B grade

On an A to F grading scale, a B is above average.

Jay School Corporation was rated above average by Indiana Department of Education in its annual school accountability report for the 2018-19 school year, the same grade it has received every year since 2015. The report was released in full Wednesday.

The release of the grades was paused while the Indiana General Assembly voted to hold schools harmless for the first two years of ILEARN test scores. Without that vote, most schools would’ve been graded D or F, lawmakers say.

Though he recognizes there’s room for improvement, Jay Schools assistant superintendent Trent Paxson said the corporation is pleased with the grade and that it’s indicative of the hard work its teachers take to prepare students for the annual standardized test as well as their day-to-day curriculum.

“We’re all proud of teachers for what they do with their students,” Paxson said.

Gov. Eric Holcomb signed the bill into law last month, which means that the highest grade between 2018 and 2020 reports will be used for its annual evaluation until this school year is graded in 2021. So, no matter what, Jay Schools can’t receive worse than a B on its state report next year, unless the state changes its grading evaluations.

Critics say the hold harmless bill basically renders the report meaningless. Chalkbeat reported that just 120 schools received a better grade this year than last year.

Wednesday’s report features significantly less detail than those in the past, which listed performance indicators, among other things.

All active schools in the corporation were graded a B except West Jay Middle School and General Shanks Elementary School, both of which received a C.

Jay County Christian Academy also received a B rating.

Jay Schools unsuccessfully appealed West Jay’s 2018 C grade, which was less than a point away from being a B grade. Had West Jay’s 2018 grade been raised on appeal, its 2019 grade also would have been a B because of to the recently enacted law.

The hold harmless law didn’t affect Jay Schools’ federal grade, which was released in January. It rated Jay County High School as approaching expectations, but that evaluation was based off of negated ILEARN test scores. JCHS was graded a C by a similar federal report in 2018.

Just 37% of Indiana students passed both the math and English portions of the ILEARN test, which was taken for the first time last spring. Holcomb and lawmakers made the hold harmless bill a priority during the legislative session to keep schools from being withheld funding because of the low scores, they said.

Teacher pay is also affected by standardized tests. A bill passed out of state Senate on Tuesday that would remove the requirement for teacher’s annual evaluations to be based in part by how well their students perform on standardized tests. House Bill 1002, which passed unanimously out of the state House of Representatives in January, is expected to be formally available for Holcomb to sign by the end of next week.

Jay County students performed better than the state average but still just 42.7% passed both the math and the English portions of the ILEARN test compared to 55.7% of students passing both on ISTEP+ in 2018.

Paxson said the ILEARN test is different from ISTEP+ because the latter is linear — every student gets the same questions — whereas ILEARN is adaptive — questions change based on the student’s answers.

Third through eighth graders can take ILEARN between April 20 through May 15, Paxson said, while JCHS sophomores will take the final ISTEP+. The ISTEP+ will then be phased out, with the state planning to replace it with what it calls a college entrance exam that will be first administered in the 2021-22 school year to 11th graders.