FARMINGTON -- Farmington Junior High, which is only in its second year as a school for seventh-ninth graders, received an A grade on the annual school report cards released earlier this month by the Arkansas Department of Education.
Joe McClung, principal of the new junior high school, said he could not attribute the top grade to any one specific factor.
"It's a testament to the quality of teachers we have here," McClung said. "I'm proud of the score. It's the result of overall change and what we're trying to do here."
The letter grades are based on a school's "ESSA Index Score," a numerical score of 1 to 100 that is calculated using numerous factors, such as results from the spring 2019 ACT Aspire tests, student improvement on the tests over time, reading at grade level and attendance rates. ESSA stands for Every Student Exceeds Act.
Farmington Junior High received an overall ESSA score of 76.17. The rating scale shows that scores 75.59 and above are given an A grade.
Folsom and Williams elementary schools also received As on the report card, and Farmington Middle School and Farmington High Career Academies both received Bs on the report card.
McClung said he sees a benefit to the state's new ESSA accountability system, compared to the former No Child Left Behind law. No Child Left Behind measured overall scores. ESSA looks at overall scores but also looks at how a school is improving each year as far as test scores.
McClung said the junior high school started its first year looking at areas that influence the grade on the report card. The first year the school in particular looked at math curriculum and aligning the math curriculum throughout the district.
"We're going to continue to do that for other core subjects. We want to dive in and focus on those so our students can be successful," he said.
The school hired six new certified teachers the first year and McClung said he believes those hires helped to boost the curriculum for the school. Three new teachers have been hired for the 2019-20 school year.
"I'm a middle level educator through and through," McClung said. "I think it takes a certain type of teacher to come in and teach these kids."
McClung said junior high teachers have to be empathetic toward what seventh, eighth and ninth graders are going through. One of his philosophies as a junior high principal is that "If you do the small things right, the big picture will take care of itself."
The junior high has made several changes that McClung believes is helping teachers and students and creating a junior high culture. For the 2019-20 school year, all grades are on block scheduling and this gives staff more time to plan with their content teachers.
The school also has an advisory time for all students for 30 minutes everyday after lunch. Teachers meet with about 20 students on a curriculum that could include topics such as character education or proper use of social media. The groups also have team-building exercises, group projects and are allowed to go to other teachers for extra help.
This gives students a "point person," McClung said.
Math teacher Jamie Pair agrees, saying she believes the advisory program brings students together who may not normally hang out as a group.
"They get to know each other, have study groups and do fun activities," Pair said, adding that bringing different groups of kids together allows them to see the strengths of their fellow classmates.
On Thursday, her advisory group was voting on a theme for a door decoration for Red Ribbon Week.
One of the students in her advisory group, eighth grader Hunter Marshall, said he likes the groups because it gives a break from class and helps students to open up with more friends.
"It's a time to catch up," Marshall said.
For the 2019-20 year, the junior high has 48 certified teachers and about 620 students. McClung said he expects student enrollment to continue to grow in the future. The building ended the 2018-19 school year with 585-590 students, so it's up by around 30 students for the current year. He said the seventh grade class coming up next year is bigger than the ninth grade class that will be leaving in May.
The school is not out of space but some teachers share classrooms. This will be alleviated somewhat in January. NorthWest Arkansas Community College uses three classrooms in the J building and will move out of these rooms at the end of the semester.
The website on the annual report cards also gives statistics about each school. For Farmington Junior High for 2018-19, it lists the enrollment as 581 students. The report card shows 5% of the students are English learners, 32% are low income and 12% are eligible for special education services. Teachers at the school have about 7 average years of teaching experience. The student to teacher ratio is 10:1 with an average class size of 18 students.
The race/ethnicity of the school is 82.1% white, 10.2% Hispanic/Latino, 1.7% black/African American, 1% Asian, 1% American Indian and 4% two or more races.
General News on 10/23/2019