Five Bibb County schools are ‘underperforming,’ Georgia says. Here’s what that means

Five Bibb County schools were on a list of underperforming schools released by the Georgia Department of Education earlier this week.

The list included elementary schools Ingram-Pye, Williams, Veterans and Southfield as well as Ballard-Hudson Middle School.

R. Steven Jones, executive officer of school improvement for Bibb County School District, said in a statement that Bibb County is focusing on improving the listed schools.

“The Bibb County School District has established a professional learning community among principals whose schools are identified on the state’s designated list,” Jones said Thursday. “These school leaders and staff have been working intensely over the last year and half on school improvement, including collaborating with GaDOE, Middle GA RESA, and Communities in Schools of Central Georgia.”

The statewide list identifies Comprehensive Support and Improvement schools, which means schools that either fall in the bottom 5% of Title I schools or have a graduation rate below 67%.

To tell whether a school is in the bottom 5%, the department uses a combination of statistics including “Content Mastery,” progress towards proficiency in English and other factors from school testing.

This means the five Bibb County schools listed had some of the lowest “readiness scores” in the state, among other factors.

Both the state department and Bibb County emphasized that the CSI schools were often ones disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. 2022 is the first year the state education department has released CSI/TSI scores since 2019 because of the pandemic.

Once CSI schools are identified they supported by the government, with the list being updated on a year-to-year basis. The department also keeps track of which schools formerly on the list improve enough to leave it, publishing an exit list each year.

Bibb County schools that left the list this year included Union Elementary School, Appling Middle School and Central High School.

“We are excited that half of our schools that were on the list have exited this year,” Jones said.

The list also included Targeted Support and Improvement schools, ones that weren’t in the bottom 5% but still warranted support. The TSI list included only one Bibb County school, VIP Academy Middle School.