Last month, Miami High School Principal Glen Lineberry received word that the school’s letter grade was raised from a D to a C.

The action by the State Board of Education (SBE) was in line with the school’s philosophy, “There is no D in Miami: Drugs, Drunks, Dummies or Drama.”

“We’re grateful to Alicia Williams and Catcher Baden at the State Board of Education for their help with our appeal,” Lineberry said. “We are excited that our new State Superintendent, Kathy Hoffman, is already demonstrating more support for rural schools than we saw in the past four years.”

Letter grades for Arizona schools have their beginnings in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and was intended to set performance benchmarks for schools to receive funding. NCLB was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act, which does not require schools grades, but Arizona NCLB statutes remain in place.

The current system was put in place in 2010, when the Arizona Legislature enacted Arizona Revised Statute §15-241 to create the A-F Letter Grade accountability system, adopted in June 2011 by the SBE.

The system is designed to place equal value on current year achievement and academic growth of all students, including the lowest achieving students.

The system measures year-to-year student academic growth and proficiency in the areas of English language arts, math and science. In 2015, President Barack Obama enacted Every Student Succeeds Act to replace NCLB.

“The A-F grading system is an artifact of the repealed No Child Left Behind, but the Arizona legislature has not yet repealed the enabling legislation,” Lineberry said. “A-F is designed to reflect the performance of suburban charter and public schools operating in much larger budgets — total and per person — than any Arizona rural school.”

In October 2018, administrators at MHS found that the SBE had altered information submitted by the school, reclassifying six students who graduated early to “promoted.” The designation implied that 10 percent of the 2017-2018 class had not graduated.

Additionally, the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) shorted MHS a “bonus point” under the College & Career Readiness Index (CCRI).

In an open letter to the SBE and the ADE, MHS administrators took exception to rules that precluded appeal and called the SBE to task for the harm inaccurate information can do to struggling rural school and the communities surrounding them.

“Appeals are limited to items which are unrelated to student performance, outside the school’s control…. In other words, schools cannot appeal ADE errors in handling reported data,” the letter states. “Such errors show up in our school’s preliminary data and, from our conversations with other school administrators, are fairly widespread. Imagine telling a student that her grade stands, even though the teacher incorrectly graded the exam.”

Additionally, “releasing initial school grades based on bad data harms schools…. Our school district has been working for several years to improve and we are making progress; the damage from a grade based on bad data will be incalculable, harmful and permanent.”

The school filed an appeal that was nearly killed in December 2018 when the SBE decided the changes would not alter the final grade.

On Dec. 17, SBE Deputy Director Catcher Baden reviewed the appeal with Lineberry and realized that the appeals committee had not read the entire appeal letter.

Baden then placed the letter grade under review and reconvened the committee to review the appeal and check for errors.

“We received notice on Jan. 4 that the ADE committee had approved our appeal,” Lineberry wrote to his teachers and staff earlier this month. “Final approval by SBE came at the Jan. 28 regular SBE meeting.”

But at its core, the appeal was about ensuring rural schools get a fair shake in a system where the deck seems to be stacked against them.

“We’re serious about ‘No D in Miami,’ and will continue our efforts to improve our school,” Lineberry concluded.

Globe High School received a C grade, while San Carlos received an F.

For more information, the State Board of Education (SBE) maintains an A-F School Grade system at azsbe.az.gov/f-school-letter-grades.