Editorial: The Coastland Times
Oct. 31, 2009
School Report Cards
This final week of October produced report cards for public schools from the State Board of Education; and Dare County schools got good ones, as did those of Camden and Currituck counties. These weren't the same type of report cards many of us used to bring home to our parents, or tried to hide. They were detailed "snapshots," as the Department of Public Instruction calls them, of elementary, middle and high school student performance as well as teacher staffing. Statewide, teacher turnover averaged 14% during the 2008-2009 school year, according to the report cards. In Dare County, it averaged 9% but was only 2% at Manteo High School. For First Flight High, it was 13% and 18% at Cape Hatteras Secondary, the smallest of the county's three high schools. The state average for fully licensed teachers in classrooms was 90%. For Cape Hatteras it was 89% compared to 91% at First Flight and 98% at Manteo, which has only half as many students as First Flight. Student enrollment during the reporting period was listed as 819 at First Flight, almost matching the state average of 826 for all high schools, including the big ones in Charlotte and Raleigh, and those as small as Columbia (186), Mattamuskeet (178) and Creswell (165). The student body at Manteo High was listed as 413, and 332 at Cape Hatteras. First Flight students scored best in the county in English and civics classes while those at Manteo scored highest in algebra, geometry and American History. Manteo's history class scores topped the state average for high schools by 15.7 percentage points, and the Dare County average by 16.7 points. In other words, except for Manteo students it appears from the report cards that Dare County high school students in general are below average in their understanding of American history, and have some work to do. Then again, that's always been the case with report cards as we remember them from days gone by. You bring home a good one, yet almost always there are grounds for improvement. ~