HOOVER – Hoover City Schools outpaced state averages in all categories judged in the Alabama Department of Education’s Education Report Card, and some Hoover schools in Shelby County scored particularly well.

Overall, HCS scored a 92, or an “A,” on the report card.

Accountability indicators included academic achievement (Hoover City Schools scored 81.9, compared to 60.3 for Alabama), academic growth (100, 87.9), graduation rate (93, 87), college and career readiness (83, 66) and chronic absenteeism (9.8 compared to 17.7, with a lower score being preferable).

The accountability indicators were combined to yield the overall score.

Scores for Hoover City Schools located in Shelby County include:

-Greystone Elementary School, overall score of 97 (93.6 academic achievement, 100 academic growth and 5.4 chronic absenteeism).

-Riverchase Elementary School, overall score of 93 (88 academic achievement, 96.4 academic growth and 5.9 chronic absenteeism).

-Berry Middle School, overall score of 95 (90 academic achievement, 100 academic growth and 9.6 chronic absenteeism).

-Spain Park High School, overall score of 87 (64.9 academic achievement, 96.8 academic growth, 94 graduation rate, 84 college and career readiness and 14.8 chronic absenteeism).

Hoover City Schools Superintendent Kathy Murphy said the district values accountability.

“While we are proud to receive a letter grade of A on our district report card, we subscribe to a system of accountability that is not so heavily reliant on a test—the ACT Aspire, a test discontinued by the State Board of Education in 2017,” Murphy said. “There have been multiple iterations of this A-F Report Card, all iterations producing different grade results. As an example, using chronic absenteeism of students instead of attendance rate could potentially produce a different grade.

“Given such divergency in grades, it seems appropriate to first to determine what we want to measure rather than seeing what the grade looks like and then changing the metrics. The point is, if one wants to make a school or school district look good or bad, pick some metrics—limited metrics—and weigh them to get the result sought. I am glad this is a ‘prototype’ report card, as it definitely needs additional attention.”

The state introduced the Alabama State Report Card so students, parents, community members and others could easily understand how their schools are performing, similar to how report cards help parents understand how their kids are doing.

Curriculum leaders in Hoover City Schools said they welcome measures that help parents spark conversations surrounding education yet caution that many changes were made to this specific report card process before its release, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Ron Dodson said.

“Overall, we are proud of our results on this first prototype report card, but it has been a very frustrating process getting to this point,” Dodson said. “The state made major changes to the categories included and the manner in which the calculations would be made multiple times, and those changes all took place after the end of the 2016-17 school year.

“I think our parents would be very upset if a teacher changed the manner in which a child’s grade was determined after the school year had ended. We are always seeking ways that we can improve as a learning institution, and when we do so, that means that more young people are going to have a better future.”

The Education Report Card can be accessed here.