Franklin Special School District: Five Franklin Special School District Schools Named Reward Schools

Press release from Franklin Special School District:

September 2, 2021

With the release of accountability data for the 2020-21 school year, the Franklin Special School District has much success to celebrate. “Despite the significant challenges faced by teachers, administrators and other personnel during the 2020-2021 school year, the TCAP assessment demonstrated many successes by our schools and students,” said Director of Schools Dr. David Snowden.

We are proud to announce that more than half of FSSD schools received Reward School status:

· Franklin Elementary

· Moore Elementary

· Liberty Elementary

· Poplar Grove Elementary

· Freedom Intermediate

These schools have earned their Reward School status with superlative success in regard to their students’ achievement and growth during the 2020-21 school year. Four of these schools are repeat awardees – Franklin Elementary, Moore Elementary, Liberty Elementary, and Freedom Intermediate were all recognized as Reward Schools in 2019, the last year the designation was given.

“We are extremely proud of the phenomenal work accomplished by our teachers who had to be extremely creative and resolute in their teaching methodologies and strategies as they worked in environments that had been totally foreign in years past,” Snowden said. “The continued focus on the teaching and learning process remained paramount even when their days were filled with a great amount of uncertainty.”

The accountability release from the Tennessee Department of Education includes overall scores, on a 0-4 scale, for each school. Every K-8 school in the state is scored annually based on a calculation that includes the following: student achievement results (from TCAP), student growth (TVAAS), chronically out of school student percentages, and growth of students taking the ELPA (English Language Proficiency Assessment). Because the district met the requirements of the “Hold Harmless” legislation this past year, our schools will not receive overall school letter grades (i.e., A-F ratings) this year, nor can they be classified as Priority or Focus schools for low results. However, schools can be recognized as Reward Schools for scoring at least a 3.1 overall grade on their calculated results.

This press release was produced by Franklin Special School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.