BY MARK J. CRAWFORD
Bradford County School District made history this week, earning a B for the first time since the school grading system was introduced.
This best-ever grade for the district was the result of each individual school’s performance, most of which improved at least grade themselves.
Lawtey Elementary improved two grades to earn its first A since 2005. Bradford Elementary was the district’s other A school. The school has risen one letter grade each year since 2022 for this achievement.
Starke Elementary School and Bradford High School also improved a letter grade with both earning Bs. In terms of points earned, BHS was only 3 percentage points away from an A.
The charter school in Brooker, Brooker Community School, and Bradford Middle School were both C schools again this year.
The high performance at the elementary schools was supported by high achievement in third grade English. At Lawtey, 79% of its third graders were proficient, 69% at Starke and 66% at Bradford.
Not only are more students testing proficient in English and math, learning gains are charting high, including among the lowest quartile of students, which also adds to point totals. BHS also had a high achievement in science and a high graduation rate.
Superintendent of Schools Will Hartley said the district is extremely excited about this year’s report card. The district has been aiming for this B for the past four years, he said.
“We’ve talked about it for three straight years, and every year we’ve made some really good, gradual increases — growth that’s what I say is sustainable,” he said.
The 4-point growth to 58% of total points earned this year is a level Hartley said the district can continue to push for.
“It’s exciting to see the direction that the district is heading. And in some of the areas, you know, things that will impact our district for years and years to come,” he said, pointing to third grade English proficiency. Those students — nearly three quarters of that cohort — will be progressing from year to year knowing how to read.
“Things like that are going to make a major impact on the district for years to come, and so, of course, we want to continue to try to grow on those things, but it’s areas like that that I really look at and think, wow, we’ve done some great things,” he said.
With the district ranking high among other districts in areas like third grade reading and sixth grade math, Hartley said the future is really bright.
“We’ve seen some good growth numbers in the past four years, but we’ve never seen proficiencies that high, and it comes from that continual growth,” he said.
