INDIAN RIVER COUNTY – Students throughout Indian River County, in general, outperformed the state on their FCAT exams this year. But how do they compare to their fellow schools in the district?
Vero Beach High School was tops in the 11th grade Science test – with 42 percent of its students achieving a Level 3 or higher, compared to the 38 percent at the state level and 39 percent at the district.
Indian River Charter High and Sebastian River High’s scores fell slightly below the state and district level, with 36 and 37 percent, respectively, achieving a Level 3 or higher.
The FCAT awards a number between one and five as a grade for the test. A Level 1 means “fail” and a 2 means “below grade level.” Levels 3, 4 and 5 mean at or above grade level performance.
All of the county’s 10th graders, including those at the charter, performed better than the state average in Reading, Math and Writing. Students must pass the 10th grade FCAT in order to graduate.
Indian River Charter High bested the traditional high schools in all three subjects.
Freshmen, too, outperformed the state average in Reading and Math. They did not take the Writing portion of the test, with the exception of Sebastian River’s Reading exam.
The state beat Sebastian River in Reading by 2 percentage points – 48 to 46.
RankSchool Grade 11 Grade 10 Grade 9 Total
–
–
1 exam*
3 exams*
2 exams*
6
1
Vero Beach
2
Indian River Charter
1
1
3
Sebastian River
1
1
2
*Numbers reflect how many exam topics were administered at each grade level that fell below the state average. A “0” represents that no exams fell below the state average, while a “1” through “3” means that some exam topics were below average. For example, 9th graders at Sebastian River took two exams – one of which resulted in a below state average score. So, the school received a score of 1 for Grade 9 for the purposes of ranking it.
Middle Schools
Indian River County’s middle schools were a mixed bag of results on their FCATs. While many performed above the district and state levels, a few slipped below the average multiple times, at multiple grade levels.
All the middle schools, however, met or exceeded the state average in the 8th grade Writing exam of 96 percent receiving a Level 3 or higher.
Imagine Schools at South Vero, which has only a 6th grade in its middle school, fell a full 10 percentage points below the district average in both Reading and Math – with 61 and 46 percent, respectively, achieving a Level 3 or higher on the exams.
The district’s 6th grade percentage average on the exams was 71 and 56 percent. As a whole, the district fared better than the state in Reading and was 1 percent off from the Math average.
The only middle school to outperform the state in all FCAT exams was Gifford, which handily had 28 percent total students receive a Level 3 or higher in all grades and on all exams.
RankSchoolGrade 8Grade 7Grade 6 Total
–
–
4 exams*
2 exams*
2 exams*
8
1
Gifford
2
Sebastian Charter Jr. High
1
1
2
3
Storm Grove
2
1
3
4
Sebastian River
1
1
2
4
5
Oslo
3
1
1
5
6
Imagine at South Vero
n/a
n/a
2
2**
*Numbers reflect how many exam topics were administered at each grade level that fell below the state average. A “0” represents that no exams fell below the state average, while a “1” through “3” means that some exam topics were below average. For example, 8th graders at Oslo Middle took four exams – three of which resulted in below state average scores. So, the school received a score of 3 for Grade 8 for the purposes of ranking it.**Imagine at South Vero has only a 6th grade in its middle school, therefore it had just two exams administered.
Elementary Schools
The Top 3 elementary schools were Roseland and Osceola Magnets and Beachland Elementary. None had any exam at any grade level fall below the state’s average on the eight total exams administered.
The Bottom 3 were Glendale, Highlands and Vero Beach, all of which had all eight exams’ scores below the state average.
Of the 136 exams given – a total of eight exams given at each of the 17 elementary schools – 65 fell under the state’s average – or 47 percent.
Rank School 5th Grade 4th Grade 3rd Grade Total
–
–
3 exams*
3 exams*
2 exams*
8*
1
Rosewood Magnet
1
Osceola Magnet
1
Beachland
2
Liberty Magnet
1
1
2
North County Charter
1
1
3
Sebastian
1
1
2
4
Fellsmere
3
3
4
St. Peter’s Academy
1
2
3
5
Citrus
1
2
1
4
5
Imagine at South Vero
3
1
4
6
Pelican Island
2
1
2
5
6
Treasure Coast
3
1
1
5
7
Thompson Magnet
3
1
2
6
8
Dodgertown
3
2
2
7
9
Vero Beach
3
3
2
8
9
Glendale
3
3
2
8
9
Highlands
3
3
2
8
*Numbers reflect how many exam topics were administered at each grade level that fell below the state average. A “0” represents that no exams’ fell below the state average, while a “1” through “3” means that some exam topics were below average. For example, North County Charter’s 5th graders took 3 exams and one exam topic’s average was below the state’s and the 4th and 3rd graders performed above the state average. So, the school received a score of 1 for the purposes of ranking it.