John Coffelt, Editor

Manchester City Schools Director of Attendance and Student Testing Randall Robinson reported to the Manchester Board of Education during the Jan. 13 meeting details of the district’s state test scores.

The Tennessee Department of Education released its School Letter Grades for 2023-2024 on Dec. 19. These grades reflect how well the schools are serving their students, measuring factors like student achievement, academic growth (including for highest need students) and college/career readiness.

College Street Elementary School received an A designation, Westwood Elementary a B and Westwood Middle a C.

Student growth for the district came in at 45.9, is well above the state average and the district has scored an Advancing designation in 2024.  

Robinson said the difference between the middle school’s C and a B could come down to the assessment scores and designations of a few students.

In a breakdown of those grades College Street received a level 5 in achievement scores, growth index was level 5 and growth of the lowest performing students factored in gave the school a 4.9 out of a possible 5 for an A and a designated Reward School.

WES had a 4 in achievement, a 3 in growth and 3 in the growth of the highest needs students. That factors out to 3.5 score or a B.

WMS missed the B score by a fraction of a point.  

Overall, Student Growth Effectiveness Levels in grades three through eight in English and language arts scored mostly 3s out of a possible 5 in expected growth. Robinson said 3s are expected, 4s slightly above and 5s are better still.

“All of our students are meeting their expected growth,” he said. “We have two subgroups that are slightly above that expected growth… Asian students and those in the lowest percentile.”  

In the district average, fourth and sixth graders scored slightly below expected growth with 2s in English testing.

In mathematics, the overall student average for third through eighth grades were in the expected growth category of 3, with Asian and English Language Learners (ELL) scoring above average with 4s.

The fourth grade math average is slightly below expected growth. The top eighth grade math students are pulled from general education math and enrolled in Algebra class. That division creates a pocket of unaccounted high test scores in the general education test scores data.

“So when you look at it a 3.1 is a C, but a 3.7 is a B,” Robinson said. “It’s a very tight movement is a lot of help.”

Director of Schools Dr. Joey Vaughn said the scores are hitting the standards set by the state and anticipates improvement in the coming year.

“We’re growing and we’re working,” Vaughn said. “When we look at data, it’s something that (we’re) looking at every day. We are very proud of the instructional process that we’ve developed in all three schools.”

John has been with the Manchester Times since May 2011. John has won Tennessee Press Association awards for Best News Photo and placed in numerous other categories. John is a 1994 graduate of Tullahoma High School, a graduate of Motlow State Community College and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Middle Tennessee State University. He lives in Tullahoma, enjoys painting, dancing and exploring the outdoors.