Schools across the district and commonwealth are seeing stars this week as results of the Kentucky Department of Education’s new accountability system have been released.

Schools are rated on a scale of up to five stars based on the results from the spring assessment.

“We are very proud of our five four-star schools,” said Harlan County Superintendent Brent Roark. “We are very pleased with our nine three-star schools. Our administrative teams, teachers and students are already working hard to prepare for the next round of assessment in the spring.”

Harlan County’s elementary schools are divided into two divisions in the assessment, elementary and middle. Scores are assigned to each.

During a press conference Monday afternoon, Kentucky Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis explained the star rankings, with one being the lowest and five the highest.

Lewis told reporters if a school earns three stars, “That is a pretty good school.”

Lewis said his daughter attends a school that would receive three stars.

In Harlan County, the district overall earned three stars at the elementary and middle school levels and two stars for the high school.

At the elementary level, Cawood and James A. Cawood earned four stars, while Cumberland, Evarts, Green Hills and Rosspoint elementary schools scored three stars. Black Mountain received two stars.

Middle schools in the district receiving four stars were Evarts, Green Hills and Rosspoint, while Black Mountain, Cawood, James A. Cawood and Wallins gained three stars. Cumberland was tagged with two stars.

Harlan County High School also received a two star on the first round of assessment, leaving substantial room for growth in the next assessment later this school year.

Lewis explained during his remarks that the college and career transition rates are 35 percent of a high school’s scores.

With the local unemployment rating being the highest in the state at 13 percent, that figure likely impacted a lower transition score for HCHS as those not pursuing postsecondary found it difficult to gain employment.

Other factors included in the ratings are math and reading performance levels, performance in social studies, science and writing, students’ academic growth/progress and graduation rate.

Forty-five percent of the high school accountability score comes solely from the math and reading portion of the junior ACT. With such a heavy percentage weight given to one test at one grade level, many of the other programs and other positive initiatives going on within the school are given little, if any, weight in the new five star accountability system.

Roark noted that no schools fell in the CSI or state intervention categories. “We are very pleased with this,” he said., adding five of our elementary and middle schools are four stars and nine are three three stars.

He also noted the district has some of the highest free and reduced lunch and special education rates in the state.

“We celebrate our successes. We are proud of all of our schools. This is the first year of the star assessments. We are all learning, as are our colleagues across the state, how all of the assessment components come together for the overall ranking. Our principals are working hard with their teams to move all of our schools to the four and five star ratings.”

The students and staff of the Harlan Independent Schools were also excited to announce their ratings.

Harlan Elementary School celebrated their successful academic performance in the state as they were recently rated as a five-star school based on Kentucky’s new five-star accountability system.

Of the more than 700 elementary schools across Kentucky, only 37 were designated as 5-star schools. Only 5 percent of the Kentucky Elementary Schools were rated as five-star, Harlan Elementary School now included in this percentage.

Harlan Middle School achieved a three-star rating and Harlan High School was labeled four-star.

Nearly 80 percent of the 319 middle schools scored one, two or three stars while less than 15 percent of the 228 high schools received a four- or five-star rating.

“Kentucky’s new accountability system is built on the philosophy that a school or district cannot be rated as one of our very best schools unless it is ensuring that all groups of students, regardless of background, are learning at high levels,” Lewis said.

“We are very proud of the remarkable academic success of our students and the dedicated efforts of our staff,” said Harlan Superintendent Charles Morton. “In light of the many challenges facing Kentucky schools, particularly those in eastern Kentucky, our focus remains on providing high quality opportunities to our students and the support necessary to excel in the workforce or on a college campus.”

School and district leaders will provide a more detailed breakdown of academic performance data for all schools in the coming days. Individual student performance reports will also be available at a later date once they are received from the Kentucky Department of Education.