Moving forward with progress on the new strategic plan, Superintendent Robert Avossa announced new tests will be added to the schedule for all schools in Palm Beach County.
“We found we just weren’t measuring enough,” Avossa said to a group of parents at Spanish River High School. “Parents were complaining that their kids were spending too much time learning and not enough showing that they had learned.”
He also reassured parents that there is adequate funding for all the new testing. “We’ve got a new sales tax coming, and we’ll also save in other areas by cutting down on unnecessary spending on subjects that don’t matter any more, like music, arts and foreign languages.”
Supplementing the wildly popular FSAs that replaced the nearly-as-popular FCATs, the new tests will be called the FAILs.
The full details are available at: Palm Beach Schools Strategic Plan.
Category: Schools
West Boca High School Bulls Baseball Team Barnstorms Through Jacksonville
Story and photos by Alan Shimel, a friend of West Boca News
The WBHS Bulls varsity baseball team took advantage of the spring break vacation to travel upstate to Jacksonville where they competed in a high school baseball tournament held at the Providence School.
The Bulls led by Coach Nathan Underwood took a full squad of 23 players up to Jacksonville for the tourney. While only playing in three games, Coach Underwood was able to get just about every player into a game for some play and experience. The team went 1-2 but were competitive in every game.
Driving up on Monday the Bulls first game was Tuesday against an overmatched St John Lutheran team. The Bulls big bats came alive early and they won a mercy rule shortened game 16-5. Senior Chris Charlock went the distance for the Bulls in this game as pitcher. Lawrence Ghougasian, Cory Kuchtam Dom Iagrossi and Chris Cavallo were among the almost 20 Bulls players with hits this game.
The next day’s game had the Bulls moving up in competition against the Bozeman Bucks. Ryan Powers started as pitcher for the Bulls. The Bucks scored a run early and held the lead throughout the game. The final was 5-2. Some excellent relief pitching by Landon Shimel kept the Bulls in the game. The West Boca squad had several chances to take the game but left the bases loaded twice in the late innings.
The Bulls played their last game this morning before heading back to the confines of friendly Boca Raton. They played Ravenwood HS from Tennessee. Chris Cavallo was the starting pitcher for West Boca. The game was a nip and tuck affair throughout. The Bull lost when Ravenwood hit a walk off sacrifice fly in their last at bat 9-8.
Win or lose it was a great experience for the players on the team. They travelled, lodged and ate together as a team. Parents were present and encouraged to participate but this is about high school athletes growing up into young men. Road trips like this are important in that process.
Thanks to the coaches and administration for putting together this trip and to parents who volunteered to drive and chaperone the players. The Bulls continue their season with Senior night on March 31 at home against Iliana Christian HS. Senior night ceremonies start at 4:45 and the game starts at 6. Go Bulls!
Loggers' Run Wrestler Wins State Championship
Chase Thompson, a 7th grader at Loggers Run Middle School, wrestled for a state championship where he pinned every opponent all the way through the finals to become the Cadet 195 pound state champion. The Cadet division was made up of 9th & 10th grade wrestlers.
Chase had suffered a knee injury during practice in January, with a fractured patella (kneecap) and strained ligaments. After extensive physical therapy and cryotherapy he was able to get read for the tournament on March 13th.
Chase Thompson was initially registered to wrestle in the USA Wrestling’s Florida Amateur Athletic Association (FAWA) State Championship in his respective division/weight class “Schoolboy” 190 lb. When there was no one entered in that weight class, he was asked to move up to the next division.
Chase was also awarded the Outstanding Wrestler for that division for the most pins and fastest pins. Congratulations to Chase for his hard work and success.
Spanish River Tops School Grades for Boca
Spanish River had the highest numbers of high schools in Boca in the latest school grades. River edged out Boca High with slightly higher scores in English, Math, Science, and a bit more of a lead in Social Studies. Boca High made the overall score close with a strong performance in the “college and career acceleration” measure.
The top two schools in the county were Suncoast and Dreyfoos, both magnet programs. River topped the rest of the county, followed by Boca High, Jupiter, Wellington and West Boca High. Olympic Heights was not far behind in 9th place out of the 25 high schools in the county with much of the difference coming in the “acceleration” measure.
Both West Boca and Olympic trailed Spanish River and Boca High especially in the English and Math scores, while remaining closer in Science and Social Studies. Graduation rates at WBHS (87%) and OHHS (89%) also trailed the stronger two schools (94% each). The most obvious area for improvement for both West Boca and Olympic is in their math performance. West Boca High was 15 points behind Boca High even though they have similar SAT scores.
As with other data we’ve seen, schools with fewer “economically disadvantaged students” tend to score better. Olympic Heights did well considering it has the highest number in this category for Boca. Inlet Grove High, a charter school in Riviera Beach, had a very strong performance considering its population of economically challenged students.
We previously reported that West Boca and Olympic lag Boca High in AP performance. But this new data show West Boca very close to Boca High in acceleration, suggesting that WBHS is making up for APs with other areas, possibly AICE, dual enrollment, or career oriented classes.
Update: We received a comment and update from Olympic Heights Principal Dave Clark:
I read your article on school grades and thought that I would email you to correct an obvious error. In the article you listed the graduation rate for Olympic Heights as 89% and also said that we trailed both Boca and Spanish River (“stronger schools”?) that each had a 94% graduation rate. As you can see from the table below the graduation rates for the four Boca area High Schools are as follows.
- Olympic Heights – 92.6%
- Boca Raton – 91.6%
- Spanish River – 90.3%
- West Boca – 85.7%
Additionally, Olympic Heights had the highest graduation rate in the entire district for “At Risk” students with 87.5%. These are the students who enter ninth grade as a level 1 or 2 in both reading and math.
I appreciate all of the coverage that you give our kids, but please be accurate with the information that is printed.
Our data came from a spreadsheet on the Florida Department of Education school grades website. It appears that the state used 2014 graduation rates, ignoring the significant improvement demonstrated by Olympic Heights in 2015.
Middle School Grades: Eagles, Loggers and Omni
Eagles Landing Middle School scored the highest of middle schools in Boca on the latest school grades. All four Boca schools received “A” grades.
Eagles ranked 5th in the county out of 35 middle schools, with Loggers’ Run at 9th, Omni at 10th and Boca Middle at 17th.
The top spot in the county went to Bak Middle, an all-magnet arts school in West Palm Beach. Wellington Landings was in second place and Don Estridge, another all-magnet program, was 3rd. Schools are ranked based on “Total Points Earned” which is driven primarily by test scores.
Eagles Landing did particularly well in Social Studies, while Loggers’ and Omni both had stronger math scores. Omni’s score was driven down by a particularly low score in Middle School Acceleration, “a measure for participation in and performance on high school EOC assessments and Industry Certification programs by students in middle school.”
As we saw with the elementary school grades, we see that higher performing schools tend to have smaller numbers of economically disadvantaged students. Western Pines Middle in West Palm Beach overperformed in that sense, coming in 4th just behind Don Estridge.
Our full spreadsheet is below:
[gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/pbc-middle-grades.pdf”]