County FCAT scores among highest in Florida

Superintendent Dr Joseph Joyner announced that the St Johns County School District received scores from the Florida Department of Education last week for the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test “writes assessment”.

On the three grade-levels tested (fourth, eighth and 10th) students continue to score above the state average on the writing assessments at each grade level.

“I am very pleased with the results on this year’s reading and writing assessments,” Dr. Joyner told Historic City News reporters. “Our teachers and students, with great support from our district staff, rose to meet the higher expectations of this year’s test. I am very proud of everyone.”

FCAT Writes is part of a statewide educational accountability program designed to measure students’ proficiency in writing in grades four, eight and 10. Students are required to write a response to a prompt on an assigned topic within a 45-minute time period. This year, all writing prompts were narrative for fourth graders and persuasive for eighth and 10th graders. Essays were graded on increased detail as well as grammar, punctuation and spelling and were scored by two readers.

THE STATS:

On FCAT Writes, out of 67 districts in Florida, fourth-grade students were 12th in the state, eighth-grade students are ranked in sixth place and 10th-grade students were ranked fifth. Fourth graders were at 83 percent proficient and the state at 81 percent. Eighth graders were at 84 percent proficient with the state at 78 percent, and 10th graders were at 88 percent proficient with the state at 84 percent.

“We will continue to enhance our instruction to meet these additional testing criteria by focusing on and increasing writing in all grades,” added Joyner.

FCAT Reading scores for ninth and 10th-grade students were released on May 15. For the second consecutive year, St. Johns County ranked first in the state at both grade levels.

Seventy-two percent of ninth graders were proficient compared to 52 percent for the state and the percentage of 10th graders who scored at 3.0 or above was 70 percent compared to the state average of 50 percent.