Unveiling the Success Story: How Franklin County Schools Achieve Remarkable Growth
Nov 02, 2023
Superintendent Mark Kopp
Want to uncover the secrets behind the remarkable growth of Franklin County Schools? Join us as we pull back the curtain on our district's success with our special guest, Kimberly Young, the Director of Assessment and Program Effectiveness. Kimberly guides us through the fascinating world of test scores and accountability, shedding light on the process, as well as the impressive achievements of our district. From Bridgeport Elementary's remarkable performance, to the amazing writing scores at Franklin County High School, and to the high rankings of our elementary, middle, and high schools, Kimberly provides a comprehensive look at the strides we've made.
This episode isn't just about scores and numbers – it's about the people and hard work behind them. We delve into the commendable post-secondary readiness in our district, highlighting the successes of Franklin County High School and Western Hills High School. We also discuss the importance of offering diverse opportunities for our students and the resulting high graduation rates. Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, our district has risen above, achieving commendable results. While test scores might not tell the complete story, they certainly shine a light on the commitment and progress within our schools. So, tune in as we celebrate these successes and gain a deeper understanding of the complexities and triumphs of our education system.
Want to uncover the secrets behind the remarkable growth of Franklin County Schools? Join us as we pull back the curtain on our district's success with our special guest, Kimberly Young, the Director of Assessment and Program Effectiveness. Kimberly guides us through the fascinating world of test scores and accountability, shedding light on the process, as well as the impressive achievements of our district. From Bridgeport Elementary's remarkable performance, to the amazing writing scores at Franklin County High School, and to the high rankings of our elementary, middle, and high schools, Kimberly provides a comprehensive look at the strides we've made.
This episode isn't just about scores and numbers – it's about the people and hard work behind them. We delve into the commendable post-secondary readiness in our district, highlighting the successes of Franklin County High School and Western Hills High School. We also discuss the importance of offering diverse opportunities for our students and the resulting high graduation rates. Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, our district has risen above, achieving commendable results. While test scores might not tell the complete story, they certainly shine a light on the commitment and progress within our schools. So, tune in as we celebrate these successes and gain a deeper understanding of the complexities and triumphs of our education system.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to FCS Unscripted, a new podcast for one team, fcs, where we look at the stories behind every one in Franklin County schools. Hello everyone, this is Superintendent Cop. I'm real excited to be with you today as we are bringing you another episode of FCS Unscripted. This episode is going to focus on a couple different things. One is going to focus on test scores and accountability. We're going to talk all about those, and we're going to talk about those with Kimberly Young. Kim is our Director of Assessment and Program Effectiveness. Welcome, kim.
Speaker 2:
Thank you.
Speaker 1:
We're very, very excited to have you here with us. This time of year, besides being Halloween season and the start of the big holiday season, it's also test score release time for us. These are assessments that we took last year in May, just now getting the scores out and everything. So it's an interesting process. But having said that, we're going to get into talking about some really, really exciting things with Franklin County schools Overall, kind of just go into what the test scores tell us about our performance last year.
Speaker 2:
Yes, it is later than usual that we're getting these back. Typically we get them in October, but it's been really exciting. So our accountability system when thinking about changes from last year so we have both of our current status, which is the performance from this current year, and then the change, which is the improvement from the prior year, and so those are both calculated in our scores. Some really, really exciting information came out of this that I think has validated a lot of what our schools are doing, a lot of what our district is doing. So we're really, really excited to finally get to share it with the public in our community. So I think our biggest excitement is that we're very proud to say we have made some tremendous growth from last year in a variety of areas. One of the most exciting our elementary, our middle and our high school are all the highest ranked when we look at indicator scores in all of Franklin County.
Speaker 1:
That's wonderful. So we were so excited about that. That is wonderful. And you said a really key word there and that's growth, and we're going to talk a lot about that with you because we saw a lot of it Huge.
Speaker 2:
And one of, I think, the stars in our district on growth is Bridgeport Elementary. They rocked it out of the park. They have been working so hard and really stayed the course of what they thought was going to be best for their kids. For the last three to four years they have just worked so hard and they were our highest ranking overall school and made the most growth. So they were our only school who was green overall.
Speaker 1:
So kudos to them and and just so, if, if in our folks who are listening to this, the colors are a newer thing to Kentucky. They started last year and the colors range from blue to green to yellow to orange to red. Obviously you don't want to be a red school, you'd rather be a blue or green school, and we challenged our schools last year to grow from their current color and many of them did and many of them made significant growth, even if they didn't achieve the next color.
Speaker 2:
They were either really close to it or, in our opinion and we can talk about that later- on as they should have been acknowledged as that color, but yes, well and it's really exciting to see we have when we look at all of our all but one of our elementary so we're green in reading and math and think about where we've put our time, our resources. We're worried about the implications after COVID and that gap we have filled. We have done such a great job with making that growth. So to see that we were high ranking in reading and math in elementary is awesome, and we were green elementary in the social studies, science and writing, which so we covered all those content areas as as high, so we were excited about exactly and, and so we had Bridgeport elementary.
Speaker 1:
That was a green overall school. We had, if I'm not mistaken, I believe, three other elementary schools that were green in every single performance category. Correct, correct, the only the only caveat there is. For some reason, their overall score was orange, yellow yellow or orange I'm sorry, whoo my bad. Yellow, yeah sorry. Green in every performance indicator and yellow overall make zero sense.
Speaker 2:
I know, I know they, you know we, I think it was her Collins Lane and peaks mill. So yes, they were green in all indicators, which is so exciting, and then Yellow yellow, and so that's just as a like an analogy.
Speaker 1:
For the folks in the you know our listeners, it's hard to understand that. I kind of you know, make a make an analogy. It's like if you got all A's on your report card and you took it home and your GPA was a 3.0 instead of a 4.0.
Speaker 2:
It just doesn't make any sense no, and they were set on cut scores. And so that's where when the statistic groups and the standard setting group that they brought together as a state, they set that cut score for yellow and green. So we were we're just excited.
Speaker 1:
We know, when we look at and dig through the data the fact that we were green and all those content areas was huge right and again, talking about the growth that we saw, I think we also want to highlight a few other schools and some other levels.
Speaker 2:
My gosh. There's so many to highlight. I know you know peaks mill had the highest for the quality of school culture and climate I'm sorry, school climate and safety. So students, before they take the tests, answer a series of questions about how they feel. Do they feel safe? Do they feel like bullying is an issue in their class? So that was exciting and they had some growth there. We had Franklin County High School man talk about their right. Yeah, it was. I've been trying to desegregate the data and look statewide where they fell because they were in blue for their writing and blue is an indicator, a color where they really do reserve that for the top performers in the state yes and so for writing.
Speaker 2:
Oh my gosh it was 81 or up in the 80s, which is huge index score, yeah, indicator score right, and that is an index score.
Speaker 1:
It's not a percentage. So when you have an index score of 81 or whatever in writing, that's just I mean it is blown it out of the park.
Speaker 2:
It really is really really great job and the other part I want to brag on is our post secondary readiness. We have made growth, continual growth, with post secondary readiness over the last few years. I know Charles Lewis, our director of post secondary readiness, has worked with the schools, the counselors, the administrators at the high school level. So this is based on Students meeting benchmark on a C T, making certain scores on a P dual credit, which is just exploded in our district, career and technical center programs that have that are tied to dual credit or have industry certification. So we as a district have really looked at are we making sure our students are ready for whatever comes next, whether that's a career pathway, a career pathway, a college pathway. And so we have grown. It was our greatest overall score in a single category. I'm sorry. One of our greatest growth as a district was in that post-secondary readiness area. We are so excited.
Speaker 1:
And that's the whole goal of public education. I mean we're trying to get them ready for to become productive citizens in our community and really proud of the work at our high schools, and that starts also with the elementary and middle schools. So we're really, really pleased and you know we offer more opportunities than just about every district. That touches us for sure and that's really paying off in huge dividends. I know Western Health High School had a really, really strong score in that category.
Speaker 2:
Yes, yes, and their graduation rate was a 96.9.
Speaker 1:
That's huge, that's tremendous. That's tremendous. Anything else that we want to highlight?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean just looking kind of generally all elementaries and you know they had growth in all academic areas green in all academic areas. Growth overall, no decline. Our high schools you know the fact that they were rated as you know, the highest in our area in Franklin County was huge. Our graduation rate still continues to climb. Post-secondary readiness. I mean it's just growth all across the board.
Speaker 1:
It was really exciting, yeah, and we had no red performance categories at the district level, which is wonderful. You never want to see that, you know. So, again, we're doing some really great things in our schools, and you know, I want everyone to know. In terms of the assessment and accountability system, we all know that this is a test that's taken in May and for a few hours during a week, so it doesn't paint an entire picture of the performance of a school. Having said that, we're really, really pleased with our results, and we'll continue to focus on the areas where we need additional growth, and you know we're, you know you should never be too proud, but, at the same time, we're very proud of what these results show A lot of hard work at the school level, thankful.
Speaker 1:
You're very thankful for our students, for our staff, the teachers, the instructional assistants, everyone, every member of the team, because you know, the focus is on hashtag. Every one, every single person is, and they show up in these scores. You know, in terms of the transition readiness and our graduation rate, and you know all of the different indicators. The one thing I will say, though, is Kim, you've been, you know you're a rock star at this information. You know you know this better than just about anyone in the state and we're so pleased that you know you've been able to help lead us through this. I know that it's a big relief now that this aspect of it is over for this year and now we can move on. So just kind of shifting gears and talking about your job and what you do in terms of you know, assessment, coordination and program effectiveness kind of walk us through what's a day in the life of Kim like A lot, a lot of hats, yeah.
Speaker 2:
So definitely working with all the assessment, not only, you know, statewide, looking at helping schools with rostering, with ACT, so a lot of the state assessments, but then helping with some of our more local assessments, iredi, which students take K8 every year. We also look at, you know, improving formative assessment world. We've purchased a program at Jelastic this year to help with our formative assessments and start looking at that data at the more local level. We also with the program effectiveness side of my job title I am the EL coordinator, so our English learners, so working with those communities and helping those students. Our multi-tiered systems of support, so students in our MTSS systems, so within our school, with students who might need more support if they are not academically on level with math or reading behavior. So just focusing a lot on structures and systems within our district.
Speaker 1:
Right, you know you've done a wonderful job and I know it's a. Like you said, it's sometimes, I think, it's probably like juggling chainsaws. You know there's a lot of different things for you to keep track of, but you're such a valuable part of our team and I want to thank you and we want to get to know you just a little bit better. So we're going to have to do a little bit of some fun facts with Kimberly Young. Let's see, kim, what is your favorite movie of all time?
Speaker 2:
My favorite movie is Little Women. I loved it since I was young and the version with, like Kirsten Dunst and Jonah Ryder, that Little Women.
Speaker 1:
All right. So if we have to shift then over to favorite food, what would it be?
Speaker 2:
Ooh, I love sushi.
Speaker 1:
Really.
Speaker 2:
Like sushi person.
Speaker 1:
yes, Any particular kind.
Speaker 2:
I like, like spicy tuna.
Speaker 1:
Oh okay, solid, solid, all right. What about your favorite television show or streaming show of all time?
Speaker 2:
Oh man, these are tough questions. These are tough questions.
Speaker 1:
This should be on the state assessment right.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it really should. Goodness man, I would have to say I really love Peaky Blinders. I was really into that one.
Speaker 1:
I need to watch that, as so many people have told me about it. They also said that you should watch it with the captions on, because it's kind of hard to understand.
Speaker 2:
You absolutely should. Yes, and it gets a little dark, so the first couple of seasons are really good.
Speaker 1:
The last one and you'll be off the hot seat.
Speaker 2:
All right.
Speaker 1:
My favorite either type of music or musical group.
Speaker 2:
So I feel like I love an array. I'm a huge Bruno Mars fan always have been, but I also love Tyler Childers so kind of an array that's two good choices.
Speaker 1:
Kim, you're off the hot seat. Thank you, and I can't thank you enough for everything you do for us, for our district, and you know we look forward to the assessment again at the end of the year and coming back and talking on this show about it again next year We'll have some exciting stuff for next year We'll see even more growth.
Speaker 1:
So that's it for this episode. Everyone, thank you so much for joining us and let's keep our focus on everyone. Have a great day everyone. Well, that wraps it up for this week's episode of FCS Unscripted. Thank you for listening in and I encourage you to subscribe and follow this weekly podcast where we will share updates, information and interviews with hashtag everyone, the wonderful students and staff who make up One Team, fcs. Have a great week, everybody.