The Arizona Department of Education released the letter grades devised under the leadership of Superintendent Huppenthal. The schools saw improvement this year as a result of them lower standards.
Officials in the Tucson Unified School district are breathing a sigh of relief that the Mary Belle McCorkle Academy of Excellence improved its grade moving for a “D” grade to a “C” grade with only 49 percent of their students meeting math standards.
At the same time, the top elementary school in the District; Rose Elementary, dropped from an “A” to a “B” grade.
Tucson Unified School District Superintendent H.T. Sanchez said Monday that the school letter grades released by the Arizona Department of Education show the district has remained stable overall during a challenging period.
The letter grades are released by the Arizona Department of Education each year and are based on factors including AIMS and other standardized test scores, graduation rates and student mobility.
TUSD Superintendent H. T. Sanchez held a press conference on Monday afternoon focusing mostly on himself. He claimed that the District’s performance stemmed from the fact he came “into a situation that is probably more politicized than any other district, I think, in the state.”
But he found he said that when he arrived at the District last year, “We had a campus that had 2 interim principles and when you take a look at the District as a whole maintaining a very similar number of A schools, B schools, and C schools, and taking some F schools off the list I think it is a great credit to our teachers, our administrators, and to our students and the desire of this community to move forward… I have met my expectations coming in.
“I hope that I have met the expectations of the administrators of this district and I hope I can continue to do that,” said Sanchez.
Sanchez said that Santa Rita, last year, was a “C” school and they are a “D” school this year. He attributed the decline to the fact that the school had three principals in one year. He said, “What we will continue to do with Santa Rita is we will provide a higher level of support there. We have staffed it with an additional assistant principle as well as some additional support personnel.”
Sanchez was critical of the Arizona Department of Education. “It is really disheartening to hear that a new test will roll out and that the expectation is from the state level that the students aren’t going to do as well. It is disheartening and sends the wrong message to teachers, administrators, and all other people who support us in the state.”
However, under State Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal standards have been lower, especially in the high school level. As a result, schools did show grade improvement across the state.
“We are in a very similar position when you take a look from last year to this year… We have seen an improvement across the board in our high schools except for a couple. One that stayed the same in Tucson High at a “B,” which is very good for a campus of over 3,000 students and Santa Rita with a change in leadership mid-year. But when I compare last year’s to this year we are in a very similar situation in multiple areas. We have seen improvements in 3rd grade reading and also some improvements in 10th grade reading as well.”
“Last year we were two points from a B, this year we are about two points from a B again,” concluded Sanchez.