JCS rises to a “C”

Laura Young
ECB Publishing, Inc.

It's official. Jefferson County K-12 School (JCS) has received a C grade from the Florida Dept. of Education (FDOE) in their 2023 report. After about two decades of mostly Ds and Fs, the district has taken a determined step into the realm of satisfactory, with all eyes on further progress to come.
In a press announcement dated Monday, Dec. 11, 2023, FDOE released the grades for the 2022-23 school year, and the spreadsheet showed Jefferson right where it was hoping to be at this point. No longer a D or F. After many years of below-satisfactory grades that resulted in a five-year handover of the school district to a charter company, the Jefferson County School Board regained control of the district and its K-12 school on July 1, 2022. According to the school grade for 2022-23, it took just one year for the local team to get things turned around.
JCS Principal Jackie Pons had warmest congratulations for all those involved in this achievement.
He was quick to announce the news to students on Monday over the school's intercom and followed up with an email to his faculty and staff.
“Today we received official notice from FL DOE that we have earned the grade of a C!!!!” Pons enthused in the memo. “This grade takes JCS off BSI’s [Bureau of School Improvement's] list. I want to thank all our great teachers for their hard work in helping us to reach this very important milestone. I also want to recognize our students and the community for everything they put into this team effort.”
The release of the 2022-23 school grades, which in previous years happened in the summer, was delayed this year due to FDOE's switchover to a new testing format that generates some of the data used in calculating school grades. Testing for 2022-23 used “progress monitoring” instead of “traditional high stakes testing,” and the data for that year will serve as a baseline for continued improvement in subsequent years.
The FDOE press office explains that, after adopting new Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking (B.E.S.T.) standards, the department developed a new test, Florida’s Assessment of Student Thinking (FAST).
“Unlike end-of-year high stakes testing, FAST is a progress monitoring system that provides teachers, students and parents real-time, immediate and actionable data at the beginning, middle and end of the school year to drive student improvement,” the release said, adding that Florida was the first state in the nation to establish a system using progress monitoring.
“These school grades serve as a baseline for districts and provide a starting point for future achievement,” said Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz, Jr. “I look forward to seeing schools rise to the occasion as they continue to provide Florida students a first-rate education.”
FDOE emphasizes that school grades for 2022-23 establish an informational baseline, with no penalties attached. It also has noted that the percentage of schools that earned an A, B, C, D or F are statistically equivalent to the 2021-22 grade results, as required by state law. When the next round of school grades are calculated, for the 2023-24 school year, FDOE indicates that points for learning gains will be included, and consequences associated with school grades will return.
Later the same day that the school grades were released, the Jefferson County School Board convened for its regularly scheduled meeting. Although the posted agenda did not include a specific time for discussion of the breaking news about the school's rise to a grade of C, the topic did come up a couple of times.
Early in the meeting, when Board Member Bill Brumfield questioned an item in the check report for payment to a consultant for strategic planning, Superintendent Eydie Tricquet explained that his services were important as the school continues to work on areas needing improvement.
“We have to keep going,” she said. “Yes, we made a C. We did. But we still had 70 percent of our students who aren't where they need to be.”
The consultant working with her has experience turning around schools, she said, and he is helping her to look at the data and develop options for continuing to address issues like attendance, discipline and proficiency.
Then, at the very end of the meeting during time for public comment on non-agenda items, Pons stepped to the podium to express his confidence that JCS will continue on its trajectory of improvement.
“This is a great day to be a Tiger,” he said. “My phone has been ringing all day... This is really significant.”
He went on to explain to board members that, although he had previously thought the 2022-23 school grade would reflect some lagging data from the Somerset administration – such as the Class of 2022 graduation rate and secondary acceleration points from 2021-22 – for some reason it did not. If that data had been included, he surmised, the grade might not have been as high.
“Today from DOE Jefferson earned a C,” Pons continued. “I hope you celebrate this. You're talking about the opportunity of us moving forward without sanctions from DOE. To think about the effort that's gone into this – I'm just extremely proud of everybody. This is shared by every stakeholder in this community, and it's very, very, very important.”
Pons assured the board that the school would stay the course with the curriculum plan that's in place, which has been approved by BSI and the superintendent.
“I will tell you this,” he said. “I basically have six months left in my contract here. I'm proud of what we've done. I appreciate the opportunity you've all given me, and we're going to finish this thing strong... You have a great team there in place for the future. You have a great team of teachers that, you know, are really good. We built capacity there for the future. We're only going to go up on this next [school grade report]. I'm confident.”
In a follow-up interview with the Monticello News / Jefferson Journal on Tuesday, Dec. 12, Pons reiterated the importance of consistency and not looking for quick fixes as the progress continues.
“We should celebrate this for our kids and keep trying to improve,” he said.
In follow-up communication with Tricquet on Wednesday, Dec. 13, she presented the News with a chart showing the data that resulted in the C grade for JCS:

FDOE, she pointed out, uses different grading scales for elementary, middle, high and combination schools. For a “combination” school like JCS, which includes elementary, middle and high school students in one school, the grading scale is this: A = 67 percent or higher; B = 56 to 66 percent; C = 35 to 55 percent; D = 23 to 34 percent; and F = 22 percent or lower. JCS, with 37 percent of the possible points, earned a C.
Tricquet says, “We made a C, and I am extremely happy about it; however, I ran for this position to help students have a hope and a future. If they are not progressing academically, then I feel I am not reaching my goal for them.”