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Almost Half Of Clinton County Schools Failing, Says IDOE

Warsaw Community Schools
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https://www.flickr.com/photos/95469015@N02/8707445809

Numbers released this week by the Indiana Department of Education show disappointing results for Clinton County schools.

For every school with an “A” grade, there was one school with a “D” or an “F”. The four "F"-graded schools all belong to the Community Schools of Frankfort. The corporation received a “D” grade overall.

Frankfort Senior High School is the only school in the corporation that received an “A”.

Assistant superintendent Joel McKinney attributes the poor grades to the student body as a whole struggling with testing.

“The failing grades that we received in our schools that feed into our high school were based on the percentage of students who passed the spring ISTEP and our low percentage of students passing the spring ISTEP is a serious concern for us,” McKinney says.

According to the Department of Education, the grade is based on student academic growth, graduation rates and college and career readiness.

Newly appointed Frankfort Middle School principal Mike Kelley says he anticipated a low score when he took the position.

“I thought we might have been a ‘D’ but I wasn’t totally surprised by a ‘F’ score," Kelley says. "And so, actually, we planned in the spring for this coming year, put in many of the things that we’re using as our turnaround principles so that they’d be in place before the state or anyone ever really told us we had to.”

Next year, the grades will measure individual student growth in comparison to the student’s past academic years.