OXFORD — The majority of SAD 17 school’s improved their academic performance this year, according to the results of the second annual Maine School Performance Grading System.

The Maine Department of Education released letter grades for every public school in Maine on Thursday, showing the state average is a C — the same as last year. SAD 17 school grades ranged from B to D, but the majority scored a C.

“Otisfield was tremendous,” Curriculum Director Kathy Elkins said of the high-performing elementary school that improved to a B this year from its D grade last year.

The Maine School Performance Grading System uses an A to F scale to provide a starting point, presenting existing education data in what the Department of Education said is an easy-to-understand format to bring transparency and accountability to school performance across the state.

The system is based on several factors, including student achievement in reading and math; growth/progress in achievement; and, in particular, the growth of the bottom 25 percent of students for elementary schools and the graduation rate for high schools.

According to the SAD 17 report card, the Agnes Gray School in West Paris, Guy E. Rowe School in Oxford Elementary School and Paris Elementary School received a C this year — the same as last year.

Hebron Station School fell from a B last year to a C, and the Oxford Middle School received a C last year, but scored a D this year.

Elkins said the Otisfield Community School has been working hard to improve student academic scores.

“They have been working on a schoolwide plan focused on growth in math that is more tuned into the common core (the state’s Common Core of Learning) and reading strategies,” she said. “They do mini-lessons and small groups that really focus on student needs.” 

While that same strategy was true in the other schools, it is unclear why some of their grades did not reflect the hard work that has been going on districtwide, Elkins said.

“I can tell you all our grade three through eight administrators met with the Curriculum Committee midyear and made adjustments (in curriculum to reflect challenging areas),” Elkins said. Adjustments in the schoolwide plans are also being made, she said.

Elkins said the reason for the decrease in scores at the Oxford Middle School was not clear. It does not necessarily reflect the major changes undergone this past year at the school when it was forced to split into two campuses to accommodate building space.

She noted the students took the test in October — only a month after students underwent the change — but she acknowledged that uncertainty and the focus on planning for the two-campus system may have played a role in the lower grade.

The middle school is looking at a schedule for next year which incorporates more student interventions in literacy and math, she said.

Every time new data emerges, adjustments are made to the school plans, Elkins said. For example, Oxford Elementary School is now focusing on creating 30-minute intervention labs for grades three and four, mostly in mathematics.

Superintendent Rick Colpitts stressed that while the report card provides another piece of data along with a multitude of other indicators, the drawback of the system is that the district gets a grade once a year that doesn’t sum up the work that went into it.

“We pay attention (to the grade) and do our best to make improvements,” Colpitts said.

For example, while the data, including scores from NECAP, show that Otisfield is improving significantly, there are still areas of concern, such as writing, Elkins said. The report card does not deal with writing scores, so it wasn’t reflected in the most recent grade, she said. 

The reporting is done in October and is based in part on participation rate. If, for example, a school doesn’t have at least a 95 percent participation, they automatically are deducted one grade. Below 90 percent participation is an automatic F, Elkins said. Each of the SAD 17 schools had at least 99 percent and, in most cases, 100 percent participation.

ldixon@sunjournal.com