Hoover schools have 8th-best report card grades in state

The Hoover school district ranked among the top 10 school districts in the state for the 2015-2016 school year, according to new accountability data released by the Alabama Department of Education.

Hoover City Schools scored 70.058 points out of a possible 75 — or 93.41 percent of the total possible points — on the new state report cards for school systems. That was the eighth-highest score among school systems statewide. 

The grades are based on students’ achievement on test scores, learning gains made from year to year, graduation rates and individual goals school systems set for themselves, said Ron Dodson, one of Hoover’s assistant superintendents.

However, the grades for 2015-2016 are somewhat incomplete because the state Department of Education still has other factors it believes should be considered in the performance of schools and school systems. Grades for the 2016-2017 school year also will take into account achievement gaps between different groups of students within a school or system, college and career readiness, and reviews of school programs to see if they are following state and district policies, Dodson said.

In 2015-2016, Hoover City Schools scored 81.29 out of 100 on student achievement, 100 out of 100 on learning gains, 94 out of 100 for its graduation rate and 100 out of 100 on its individual goal, according to data on the Alabama Department of Education website.

The Hoover school district’s individual goal for 2015-2016 was based on a student survey on how well students are using technology tools for their education, Dodson said.

The state did not assign A-F letter grades to schools and school systems for 2015-2016 but plans to do so next year once all indicators are graded. However, if a letter grade had been assigned to the Hoover school system in 2015-2016 based on the data that was measured, it would have been an “A.”

Hoover school board member Earl Cooper said the A-F letter grades concern him because he believes they can easily be taken out of context.

Dodson said it’s clear that poverty continues to be a driving factor in educational performance in Alabama. As a general rule, the lowest-performing school systems are those with the highest poverty, he said.

However, there are some aberrations to that, where high-poverty schools are doing well, Dodson said. There are lessons to be learned from those schools, but poverty remains a huge factor, he said.

Cooper said it’s important to remember some students may score lower on achievement tests but, at the same time, may have made much more improvement than some higher-achieving students who started out in school with a lot more advantages in life. He noted Hoover schools have a lot of students who come in and out of the school system due to residential moves.

“They do exceptionally well for the time we have them,” Cooper said.

Dodson said Hoover students “are clearly punching above their weight.”

“Our kids may not always be right there at the cusp of achievement, but boy are they making and exceeding our learning gains goals for them,” he said.

Superintendent Kathy Murphy last month shared with the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce the Hoover school district is surpassing state and national averages for proficiency in English, math, science, reading and writing, but still has room to improve.