This week, the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) released school grades for the 2022-23 school year.  As a part of Florida’s first-in-the-nation transition to using progress monitoring, grades for the 2022-2023 school year serve as a baseline and carry no negative consequences. These grades provide a starting point for future achievement for our schools.

The new grades are based on schools' performance in various achievement components.  For elementary schools, those components are English, math and science components. Middle schools have those components, plus social studies and a middle school acceleration component. High schools are graded on English, math, science, and social studies components, plus a graduation-rate component and a "college and career acceleration" component.

All Holmes County Schools received a school grade of either “B” or “C” for 2022-23.  Both Bonifay K-8 and Holmes County High improved by a letter  grade to “B” status.  Ponce de Leon High School and Poplar Springs School maintained their “B” status.  Four of the six schools received a grade of “B”, but in spite of this, overall the district received a grade of “C”, based on the most recent scoring scale provided by DOE.  Last year’s scale would have placed the district as a “B.”  

Superintendent Brown stated, “While we are excited to see this improvement in our overall score, we are not satisfied with this score.  Our goal is to make Holmes District Schools an “A” district even as we continue to chase the changing scale scores set by the state.”

Schools have just completed Progress Monitoring #2.  We will be evaluating scores and growth demonstrated between PM 1 and 2, and revising instruction to meet academic needs as indicated by the progress monitoring results.