and shaking going on within individual sites in terms of grades and enrollment, both the Charter School and Fountain Hills Unified School District have maintained their “A” standings for another school year.

The Department of Education released annual grades for individual sites and districts last week, giving Arizona schools and families a gauge by which to determine what kind of progress is being made.

A large part of these grades is determined by students’ performance on the annual AIMS tests, as well as an individual grade, school and district’s ability to show improvement in results for those exams.

Grades

School grades work on a system identical to those given to students in the classroom, with cumulative points determining where on an A-F scale each site/district falls.

The Fountain Hills Charter School received 168 points this year, good enough for an A grade.

“I’m just so proud of our students and staff for maintaining an A grade for the past three years in a row,” said Principal Karyn Miller.

“We believe in our Montessori foundation and educational practices where kids are intrinsically motivated to learn.”

The Fountain Hills Unified School District moved up two points this year to a total of 142, good enough to keep it’s A grade.

Three sites within the district improved their point totals last school year with Four Peaks moving up 12 points to 158 (an A grade), Fountain Hills Middle School improving two points to 131 (B grade) and the Fountain Hills High School moving up two points to 139, a B grade and just one point shy of making an A.

McDowell Mountain Elementary School was the only local site to drop in points, moving from 124 to 119 and dropping from a B to a C. McDowell Mountain missed maintaining its B standing by a single point.

“We’re taking a look at our curriculum and standards and making sure they’re in alignment,” said Superintendent Tom Lawrence.

“We have an outside consultant looking at our data and he will be providing input based on what he discovers in the next week or so, but I have complete confidence in the staff and administration at McDowell Mountain to get that grade back up.”

Lawrence also noted that the site did not receive points for its English Language Learners this year. A site with at least 10 ELL students gets an additional three points toward its grade. McDowell Mountain met that requirement in previous years, but not in 2012-13.

Overall, Lawrence said he is happy to see FHUSD remain an A district, noting that it also remains one of the highest rated districts in the state.

“That’s certainly a good thing,” Lawrence said.

“We’re continually trying to improve. It’s about drilling down, seeing what went right and what we can improve on. There’s always room to improve and we certainly aim to do that.”

Enrollment

While only two weeks’ worth of classes have been ticked off the calendar in the 2013-14 academic year, early enrollment figures show the Charter School moving up in student population ever so slightly while the FHUSD continues to see a decline.

Miller said the Charter School is currently at 130 students this year, up about 10 from 2012-13.

At FHUSD, Lawrence said that the district has dropped about 65 students compared to May’s figures with most of the decline happening in the elementary level.

“It will take another week of school before we can really get a handle on that number,” Lawrence said.

“We track based on cohorts — a class moving from kindergarten to first grade, for instance — and it looks like we’re at about 1,800 students compared to 1,865 last year.”

Lawrence said this has been fairly typical in recent years and doesn’t consider the figure to be a “spike.”

“What we’re finding so far is that a few students are choosing different schools but, mostly, the drops are due to students physically moving away from the district,” Lawrence continued.

“I’ve asked for enrollment reports from each school and we’ll be able to plan strategies once we get a better idea of the big picture.”

Lawrence also stated that a lack of young families moving into the area is a big factor.

“When you have a class of 170 seniors graduate and leave the district and a kindergarten class of only 102 students coming in, that makes a big difference,” he added.