PSJHS area’s only B school

ABC School, PSJ elementary fall just short

When it comes time for the state of Florida to award letter grades to its public school, it can be a game of inches.

Both the Apalachicola Bay Charter School, a kindergarten through eighth grade combination school, and Port St. Joe Elementary, a kindergarten through sixth grade school which next year will go just to the fifth grade, each missed hitting a B by a single point.

So this left Port St. Joe High School, which was three points short of an A, as the only B school in either Franklin or Gulf counties. 

Each of the five others, Franklin County Elementary and High Schools, Wewahitchka Elementary and High School, and the ABC School were C schools.

Port St. Joe High School’s goal had been to “raise the score in 2024,” so principal Sissy Godwin said while she was pleased the school had for the third year in a row earned a B, there were mixed feelings.

“Our kids showed up and we were very very proud of them,” she said. “I don’t sit satisfied, there’s always room for growth. I was still disappointed we were not an A. On the (previous) scale we would have been one point short of an A.

“While B is a good place to be, our goal is always for our students to perform their absolute best and for our teachers to provide the best instruction,” Godwin said. “We have worked all summer in all the Gulf district schools and we collectively have determined some areas we can work on as a district and we’re going to be working together to improve all our students learning. 

“As the principal and instructional leader, I did not sit satisfied with a B and I believe we have the staff and we have the students that can get us to that level A,” she said. “All of our principals work very closely together, all supporting one another, working together to support each other and we’re going to get there.”

The scoring takes the overall average percentage of a number of criteria.

There are five achievement components, for overall English Language Arts as well as specifically for the third grade; mathematics, science, and social studies. These components include student performance on statewide, standardized assessments, including the comprehensive progress monitoring assessments and end-of-course assessments.

There also are four learning gains components, both for the collective overall success for all students in English and math, and for learning gains for the lowest performing 25% of students in these subjects. 

The school grades also consider Middle School Acceleration, which is based on the percentage of eligible students who passed a high school level end-of-course assessment or industry certification; as well as College and Career Acceleration, which is based on the percentage of graduates who earned a passing score on an acceleration examination (qualifying AP, IB, or AICE), earned a passing grade in a dual enrollment course that qualified for college credit, earned 300 clock hours through career dual enrollment courses in the same approved program, earned an Armed Services Qualification Test score and two course credits within the same military branch, or earned an industry certification. 

The graduation rate also factored in, as it measures the percentage of ninth graders who graduate within four years. 

Each of the six schools found themselves with the best performance on the Forgotten Coast in at least one criteria.

The ABC School led in overall achievement in English, science and social studies; Port St. Joe Elementary led in learning gains for third grade English, and in overall math achievement; Port St. Joe High School was best in learning gains in English and in math, in learning gains among its lowest performing math students, and in middle school acceleration; Wewa Elementary led in learning gains in English for its lowest 25 percent of students; Wewa High School had the best graduation rate; and Franklin County High School was tops for its college and career acceleration.

“If I’m looking at my scores for the lowest quartile, our gains we’ve shown are among the highest gains in years in reading and in math,” said Godwin. “I’m very pleased with the lowest quartile of students making gains.

“Our graduation rate did drop , and we attribute a lot of that is we’re still pushing out the last of Covid students who have more of those learning gaps,” she said, noting that the graduation rate calculated was for the Class of 2023.

“This group that just left us will be the last, and after that we should start seeing an uptick,” Godwin said.

The principal also noted that “our seventh and eighth grade reading scores went up significantly,and I was pleased to see those.”

Godwin also noted that there is more to education than just test scores.

“We can not forget that academics is the primary piece of our public education system,” she said. “But there are many other components that help shape student lives that help them be successful when they leave high school.”

The State Board of Education’s updated school grading scale showed that in 2024, nearly 1,300 schools earned an “A” grade, a 6-percentage point increase over 2023. Additionally, the number of schools earning a “D” or “F” grade decreased, with 81 fewer schools earning a “D” and 17 fewer schools earning an “F.”

In 2024, the number of elementary schools earning an “A” grade increased by 4 percentage points; the number of middle schools earning an “A” grade increased by 7 percentage points; and the number of high schools earning an “A” grade increased by 10 percentage points. The number of combination schools earning an “A” grade increased by 7 percentage points. Florida’s charter schools also saw improvements. Of the 602 charter schools with a grade in 2024, 69% received an “A” or “B” in 2024.