By Fred Guarino
The Lowndes Signal

The Lowndes County Public School System as a whole  made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for 2011-12 under the No Child Left Behind Act. Except for graduation exam test scores of three students, every school in the system would have met its goals.

The school system made AYP as did Fort Deposit Elementary, Central Elementary, Jackson-Steele Elementary, Lowndes Middle School, Hayneville Middle School and Central High School.

Three students not scoring a little higher on the state graduation exam kept The Calhoun School from making it a clean sweep, Lowndes County School Superintendent Dr. Daniel Boyd said.

“So, we’ve done really, really, really good,” Boyd said.

He said the Lowndes County School System made 87 out of 91 goals.

“And the fact that we made it systemwide is something we’re really, really proud about,” said Boyd, who added that he is not satisfied.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” he said. “We cannot stop until every school makes AYP.”

Boyd said there is a new instructional assistant/assistant principal at The Calhoun School (Renata Hollins).

“We’re going to keep Mr. (Kenneth) Fair (principal at Calhoun) in place. He has shown some gains. For him to miss it by only three students speaks highly of the work that he’s done thus far,” Boyd said.

Boyd said he felt the school system should continue to the course, “And we have to realize that sometimes things take time.”

He expressed pleasure in the work Fair and the teachers at Calhoun have done.

“I think its just a matter of time when they make adequate yearly progress,” he said.

Boyd said the Lowndes County School System has made AYP about six years in a row.

He said there had been problems at Calhoun and all of the other schools have not always made it.

“But this year we’ve refocused, we’ve provided a lot of professional development,” Boyd said. “Today is a professional development day (Monday) and the professional development is targeted or prescriptive in nature. It’s based on the needs of the individual teacher, individual principal. We’re going to continue to work hard with the hopes and the strong belief that every school will make AYP.”