Birmingham City Schools sees gains in state department report card but there’s more progress to make

The state department of education released the scores for the annual Alabama state report card on Thursday. Birmingham city schools got a C this year, but the good news is nine schools jumped at least a letter grade to make improvements in just one year. The district also doubled its number of schools with A grades.

BCS said this is the second year in a row it’s had improvements since the state department of education started the report cards in 2017. “To move a few years ago from having a 66 when the report was first started to being in the seventies is great,” BCS superintendent Dr. Mark Sullivan said, “but we’re not satisfied.

” Huffman and Carver High schools as well as Central Park Elementary School saw some of the biggest achievements. Huffman and Carver jumped from a D to a C since last year’s report and Central Park went from an F to a C. Huffman principal Dr.

John C. Lyons Jr. said he’s extremely proud of his staff for pushing students to do their best.

This year, Huffman reported an 85% graduation rate and a 63% college and career readiness score. The Vikings boast a 90% graduation rate for the class of 2023 and 97% college and career readiness rate, which will be included in next year’s report. “The key thing is to make sure that students–we want all of them to graduate in May or June,” Lyons said.

“But even if they don’t—even if they have to take a summer program or something related to that—they have an opportunity to complete their studies and be eligible to go to college or move into the workforce in the upcoming fall. ” Sullivan tells WVTM 13 the district is working to address reading and math proficiency issues and has already come up with a plan. “We have a literacy act that’s coming down the pipe this year,” he said.

“We identified students who were reading below grade level in second grade last year before they got to third grade. ” Lyons believes that’s an area his students can improve in as well and increase the school’s C score this year. “We achieved a possible 26 out of 30 points,” he said, “which was a high point area.

The students were growing academically. ” But part of closing that learning gap is tackling chronic absenteeism seen across BCS. Lyons said Huffman is taking getting students in the classroom a step further by giving them a reason to look forward to coming to school.

Administration offered free tickets to games, gift cards and movie tickets, but more importantly, Lyons said the school offers courses that excite students. “We earned a possible eight out of ten points for attendance,” he said. “That’s a lot.

That means our students were here the majority of the time. We have programs such as our fire science program, our health science program, our Academy of Architectural and Construction Design where we build tiny houses and so forth. Students want to be a part of those programs such as cosmetology, business, education courses.

” Sullivan sees the progress the school system has made, but he knows now is no time for slowing down. “We still have far too many students that are not achieving at the level that we want them achieving,” he said. .