The Georgia Department of Education released the College and Career Ready Performance Index data, also known as the CCRPI scores for all schools and school systems last week.

In those scores, Decatur County school officials say they see room for improvement, but as the data is from one year ago and lagging, there is only so much they can change.

The CCRPI is Georgia’s statewide accountability system, implemented in 2012 to replace the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) measurement, after the U.S. Department of Education granted Georgia’s waiver from NCLB on Feb. 9, 2012. It measures schools and school districts on an easy-to-understand 100-point scale, helping parents and the public better understand how schools are performing in a more comprehensive manner than the pass/fail system previously in place under AYP.

Last year Decatur County Superintendent Dr. Fred Rayfield said the school system made substantial changes based on 2012 scores, but these 2013 scores do not reflect those changes due to lagging data so they do not know what changes have been effective.

“The unfortunate part about the calculation process is this is last year’s data, so we don’t have results on the intervention,” Rayfield said. “Things we tried to do to improve that score have been in place all this school year and we won’t know how effective those changes were until next fall when the 2014 numbers are released.”

Rayfield said at the start of this new evaluation, school systems were told by the state that data would be lagging anywhere from one year to 18 months.

“I want to know how I did this year and I want to know that this summer so I can make my adjustments before the next school year starts,” Rayfield said. “Now I am making my adjustments after it is a done deal.”

The 2012 scores were adjusted so that schools could compare progress from 2012 to 2013 fairly with the same methodology.

In Decatur County, Assistant Superintendent and head of curriculum and instruction, Dr. Suzi Bonifay, said there were four schools in the system that improved and four that decreased in the CCRPI scores.

Jones Wheat Elementary School, Hutto Middle School, Elcan King Elementary and Potter Street improved from 2012 to 2013, while Bainbridge High School, Bainbridge Middle School, John Johnson Elementary School and West Bainbridge Elementary School decreased in their scores.

The score reports are broken up by level of schooling. The district elementary schools scored 79.4, the district middle schools scored 68.7 and the Decatur County high school category received a CCPRI score of 60.9.

Bonifay said this overall score includes test scores and many other pieces of data depending on the level category. For example, the high schools factor in graduation rates or how many students have completed career pathways as part of their score.

“Everything is trying to measure your growth and how much you are making progress,” Bonifay said.

She said so far in the school’s analysis, they feel they are still struggling with the achievement gap points — points that show how you are closing the gap between the highest performing student and the lowest performing student.

But Bonifay said the way the score is calculated could change again next year and Bonifay, like Rayfield, said the lagging data makes creating an action plan difficult.

“It is hard to hit a moving target,” Bonifay said. “They say that after next year they are going to stop the changes, unless we end up with a new state superintendent who has different ideas. “

Bonifay said the schools in the system all meet every 60 days and do spot checks on where they stand in improvements and present short-term goals they have accomplished.

“There is not just one plan of action based on the CCRPI results,” Bonifay said. “There are multiple plans.”

More scores can be found on the Georgia Department of Education website.