Students and teachers at Montevallo High School can open the doors on the first day of school with a boost of school pride. The school met Annual Yearly Progress requirements this week for the first time in two years.

“We are ecstatic over the good news about our AYP results,” said Principal Judy Simmons. “My faculty and students have worked so hard to improve our scores, and I am so proud of our accomplishment. As a school, we are dedicated to implementing best practices in order to achieve continued success.”

The increased test scores and graduation rates move MHS one year closer to being taken off school improvement status.

Meanwhile, five other schools must put their efforts into high gear to make up for lost ground.

Nearby Thompson High School missed AYP because of weak reading proficiency scores among students who receive free and reduced lunch and among black students.

Shelby County High School also missed AYP by one area. SCHS failed to reach standard graduation rates, which require a certain percentage of students to receive a diploma. The graduation rate formula measures the number of students who actually complete all four years at a school.

The Linda Nolen Learning Center also missed AYP due to graduation rates.

Valley Elementary and Valley Intermediate School both failed to reach AYP because of reading and math proficiency scores of students within special education classes at the intermediate school. VES only goes through the second grade so its progress is based on the intermediate school’s scores.

Superintendent Fuller said professional learning communities, where teachers meet collaboratively to review assessment data and develop instructional strategies is one of the main points of Shelby County’s Continuous School Improvement (CSI) process.

“Our CSI school leadership teams will now take this newly released data and will immediately start to develop strategies and goals for this school year,” Fuller said. “This is a very important process in developing their school improvement plans, which each school must do and submit to the state.”

AYP designations for student achievement takes into consideration scores on the Alabama Reading and Mathematics Test (ARMT) for grades 3-8, the Alabama High School Graduation Exam (AHSGE) for grade 11, and the Alabama Alternate Assessment (AAA) for grades 3-8 and 11.