Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Superintendent Walter Knighton presented school climate score ratings during the April 14 School Board meeting. State law requires schools to be rated on a one-to-five-star scale. The factors that go into the calculation are school discipline, how safe and free of illicit substances the learning environment is, school wide attendance, and a survey. Five stars is the highest rating a school can achieve.

The scores given were from the 2023 through 2024 year. Sumter County Primary School received five stars, Sumter County Elementary School received four stars, Sumter County Intermediate School received four stars, Sumter County Middle School received two stars, and Sumter County Highschool received one star.

School Board member Rich Barnes questioned Knighton on the reason why the high school had a one-star rating. Knighton stated that the cell phone policy affected discipline. The high school received a 69.60. Anything 71.1 or below is considered one star for a high school. For the discipline category, the weighted suspension rate was 6.19.

The scores for the survey component were from parent surveys, student surveys, and staff/teacher/administrator surveys. The total survey score was 69.46, with the student portion 60.44, the teacher/staff administrator portion 66, and the parent score 81.94.

When asked about the policy, Associate Superintendent Kimothy Hadley noted that the high school implemented a cell phone policy in 2023-2024 with new discipline measures. For the current school year, the cell phone policy and related disciplinary measures have been revised.