Tracking similar improvements statewide, Flagler County students in all grades improved their scores year over year in English and math, in some cases markedly so, as well as in all other disciplines subject to standardized tests, according to figures released by the state Department of Education Wednesday. The results are a boon to Superintendent LaShakia Moore and her administration, reflecting the first testing cycle entirely on her watch since her appointment in September 2023.
Rarely have Flagler schools been able to take heart from year-end testing scoresheets with as few to no qualifiers as they will be able to this time–at least not since the days of Superintendent Bill Delbrugge more than a decade ago.
“I’m really proud of the work that we’re doing, I really am,” a cheery Moore said in an interview this afternoon. “I’m super proud of us, the hard work of each of our schools, our students, are doing, but what I’m most proud of is that every subgroup of students, they’re all moving foward.” That’s a first in recent years. What made the difference? “Strategic focus back to academics. That’s really it, for all schools, for all students,” Moore said, citing distractions–“outside things”–that had prevented that focus previously. “This year we made a promise that that’s what we’re going to do.”
In writing, Flagler’s students in 4th through 10th grade are a shade above state scores in every grade–not exceptional, like St. Johns County (which remains the gold standard of student achievement in almost every grade and every category) but better than the mean.
Students in every grade also improved their scores, compared to 2024, in the statewide science test and the Biology End of Course exam, as well as in besting the state average by a shade as well as in civics and U.S. history, with a four-point improvement in history (70 percent at proficiency or better, compared to 66 percent a year ago).
Though those calculations are not expected until later this summer, the improvements may help finally edge the Flagler County school district back into A-rated territory, though those calculations take much more than school assessments into account. The district must show improvements in its graduation rate and show improvements in the performances of students in the lowest quartile, as well as solid scores in accelerated courses such as the International Baccalaureate, Advanced Placement and Cambridge AICE. But there has been improvements in those categories.
“We have our fingers crossed that this is going to be it and this is going to be it for years to come,” Moore said.
Still, the nearly across-disciplines improvement in scores suggests perhaps unsurprisingly that Moore may be the first superintendent since Jim Tager to reclaim the district’s A rating after languishing in B territory for the last three years, and for 10 of the last 11. The district missed an A by a shadow last year, when Moore had not yet had a full year’s tenure as superintendent. The suprintendent is unlikely to be satisfied with the results: the huge logo in her office reads: “THERE IS NO FINISH LINE.”
In End of Course tests for Algebra 1, results were slightly mixed but on the whole quite solid. Only 38 percent of the 105 students taking the exam in fall managed to get a proficiency grade or above. But when 1,219 students took the test in spring, 60 percent did (but with an alarming 24 percent only for the 103 10th graders who took the test; the average was lifted by the strong performances of 7th and 8th graders.)
Likewise for geometry. Of the more than 1,000 students who took the EOC in spring, 65 percent were at proficiency or better (including 98 percent of 8th graders, but only 32 percent of 11th and 25 percent of 12th graders). Too few students took the test in winter to make a statistical impact. For the fall test, only 21 percent of the 28 students who took the test managed to be at proficiency or better.
Looking at English scores a little closer, third graders in Flagler County have posted strong improvements, in some cases outstanding improvements. Overall, 64 percent or better of third graders in every one of the district’s schools scored at proficiency or above, compared with 61 percent last year.
Old Kings Elementary is at 73 percent (down from 78 last year) and Bunnelll Elementary is at 59 percent. Bunnell may be at the lower end, yet its score is a huge improvement over last year, when just 48 percent of 3rd grade students were at proficiency or better. Rymfire Elementary was at 54 percent last year. It is now at 60 percent. Wadsworth Elementary was at just 50 percent last year. It was at 69 percent this year. Belle Terre Elementary went up by a point, to 65.
Imagine School at Town Center, the charter school–it is publicly funded but privately run–saw only 57 percent of its third graders at proficiency or better, a decline of three points from last year
At the upper end, 10th graders at Flagler Palm Coast High School improved markedly, from just 50 percent at proficiency last year to 57 percent this year. Matanzas High School’s 10th graders also improved, from 59 to 62.
Repeating the same analysis for math, Flagler County’s 3rd graders showed even better improvements, with 70 percent at proficiency or better, compared to 60 percent last year, with Rymfire at the lowest end with a still-remarkable 66 percent of its students at proficiency or better, a 6-point improvement over last year. Bunnell Elementary went from 46 percent at proficiency or better to 73 percent, an astounding 27-point turnaround. Belle Terre went from 61 to 74, a 13-point improvement. Wadsworth went from 67 to 71. Absent more negative results elsewhere, all those sharp improvements will weigh toward pushing the district into A territory.
In math as in English, the lowest performing school was Imagine, though at 59 percent at proficiency or better, its third graders vastly improved over last year, when the previous class was at 45.
In math, the highest grade scored by FAST testing is the 8th. Collectively, 60 percent of Flagler County’s 8th graders were at proficiency or better, three points better than the state average and three points better than last year. Buddy Taylor Middle School’s 8th graders went from 57 percent at proficiency or better last year to 63, and Indian Trails’ 8th graders went from 56 to 61.
Imagine School had an astounding drop: from 70 percent last year to 20 percent this year. That’s not of small concern to the district. Imagine’s scores all figure into the calculation of the district’s overall points toward an A. If the district were to fail to get that A again this year, there would be little question as to why: Imagine’s huge drop will have played possibly a deciding role.
Trying to navigate the state’s labyrinth of acronyms, testing schedules, scoring methods and breakdowns at grade levels would require a yearlong course by itself, and if there were to be an end-of-year assessment for it, most adults would fail it: it’s that absurdly complicated, and it changes almost every year.
The state issues a 25-page guide. But it can be as impenetrable as Hegel. For instance, assessments are graded on a scale of 1 to 5, with 3 and above showing proficiency. But the state also provides comparative tables that show district scores with the percentage of students scoring 6 and above, and the percentage scoring 7 and above. That’s because 6 is the mean raw score.
What has FAST got to do with BEST, what are all these PM numbers all about, and what’s the difference between an EOC and a FAST test, to not get into FCLE? As if that weren’t enough, there’s also a whole color-coded system differentiating one subset of data from another between student scores.
Here’s an explanation of the basics.
Florida Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST) monitors progress for grades 3 through 10 in English and reading and in grades 3 through 8 for math through three tests per year. The tests are based on so-called BEST standards. The acronym stands for Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking.
The tests taken three times a year are broken down into three progress monitoring windows, referred to as PM1, PM2 and PM3. Test scores naturally improve over the year, since students are not expected to be at proficiency in the first two periods.
Writing Assessments based on BEST standards are administered to grades 4–10. Students take the test only in spring. The results don’t affect their English scores.
End-of-Course (EOC) tests are administered once at the end of the year to measure middle- and high-school level courses in Math (Algebra 1, Geometry), Science (Biology 1), and Social Studies (Civics and U.S. History).
There is also the Statewide Science Assessment, which students in grades 5 and 8 take once in spring, and the Florida Civic Literacy Exam (FCLE), which students take after completing a U.S. Government course.
