NASHVILLE, WOODBURY: The Tennessee Department of Education announces the school and district designations for the 2021-22 school year, which includes the highest performing schools and districts for academic achievement and student growth. Across the state, 427 schools spanning 92 districts received designation as a Reward school, and 16 districts received designation as an Exemplary district.
Schools are eligible for four types of designations based on their overall performance across indicators that are essential to student success, including how the school prepared students to be proficient (achievement), accelerated student learning (growth), encouraged students to attend school regularly (chronically out of school), prepared students for post-secondary success (graduation rate and ready graduate), and supported English learners acquiring language skills.
Schools are recognized as a reward school when they demonstrate high levels of performance and/or improvement in performance by meeting their annual measurable objectives across performance indicators and student groups, and the reward school distinction places significant emphasis on improvement from the prior school year. From the 2020-21 TCAP administration, a significant number of schools saw improvement and increased participation in this year’s assessments to qualify for the distinction.
“Tennessee students, families, educators, and school communities have worked hard to overcome a variety of challenges stemming from the pandemic and I congratulate them on their efforts,” Commissioner Penny Schwinn said. “Our teachers and school and district leaders focus on helping students improve every day and we will continue to focus on student achievement, as well as growth, so that all students are set on a path to success.”
The complete list of district and school designations, including Reward schools and schools exiting Priority or Focus status, is posted on the department’s accountability webpage (opens a link in a new tab).
In addition to recognizing reward schools, the department also named priority schools and focus schools. Priority schools, also federally designated as comprehensive support and improvement (CSI) schools, were the bottom five percent of the schools across state due to multiple years of low academic performance. Focus schools, which are federally designated as either targeted support and Improvement (TSI) or additional targeted support and improvement (ATSI), are also identified based on school performance among student groups. Additional support and funding will be provided to the identified priority and focus schools next school year for school improvement purposes.
School districts also receive designations based on their performance and/or demonstration of improvement on the same set of school performance measures. These preliminary designations are available on the department’s accountability page (opens a link in a new tab) and will be presented to the State Board of Education for approval at the October 28, 2022 quarterly meeting.
The Cannon County School District was designated as satisfactory.
Satisfactory (opens a link in a new tab)
Districts designated as satisfactory received an overall score equal to or greater than 1.1 but less than 2.1. See below for a list of districts with satisfactory designation for 2021-22.
| Cannon County Schools = 1.7 |
“Our Cannon County School District has undergone systemic and historic change this past year,” William Freddy Curtis, Director of Schools, Cannon County Schools, said. “I sincerely believe that we have ‘turned the proverbial corner” and are on the right track to accelerate learning for all of our students. I further believe that our teachers and staff are committed to going beyond ‘satisfactory’ to ‘accelerating’ with the goal of ‘exemplary’ and all Cannon County Schools being named ‘reward schools.’ We are focusing on all aspects of accountability with success rate being paramount with students to be proficient (achievement), accelerated student learning (growth), encouraged students to attend school regularly (chronically out of school), prepared students for post-secondary success (graduation rate and ready graduate), and supported English learners acquiring language skills. We did have some subgroups in the ‘advancing’ category. Cannon County Schools embraces the challenge with our new configuration to meet the future with optimism for success.”
For Tennessee Department of Education media inquiries, contact Edu.MediaInquiries@tn.gov. For local media inquiries, contact William Freddy Curtis, Director of Cannon County Schools, at (629) 201-4801, ext. 10101, or at williamf.curtis@ccstn.net for local Cannon County Schools information.