Shores Schools Span the Statewide Rankings

Schools in the three districts in St. Clair Shores spanned the recently released rankings of schools in the state by the Michigan Department of Education.

South Lake Schools had the highest-scoring school in the city, , but also a school that was identified as a Persistently Lowest Achieving (PLA) school.

was one of 98 schools placed on the PLA list. With the school on the list, South Lake is required to develop and implement an approved redesign plan, according to the state. The school remains under the supervision of the School Reform Officer until the School Reform Officer determines it has made significant improvement in pupil achievement and the state Superintendent of Public Instruction releases it from the measures that have been imposed under state law, according to a release from the state.

Officials with South Lake could not be reached for comment Friday. officials also could not be reached for comment.

officials were pleased with the rankings, but also cautioned that the listings can be deceiving.

"We are pleased at Lake Shore to be far from the bottom of the list.  However, placement on this list can be deceiving," said Tesha Thomas, assistant superintendent of educational services. "Many of our schools have more than 90% of students proficient in certain areas. Yet because we are consistently in the 90% range we are seen as not having adequate "growth."  

The Michigan Department of Education is required each year to produce a list of persistently lowest achieving schools; last year, the department also published an overall top-to-bottom ranking of all schools in the state.

The top-to-bottom ranking includes all public schools and is based on student proficiency and improvement in math, reading, writing, science and social studies, as well as graduation rate and achievement gaps between students within a school.

The department acknowledges the methodology used to rank the schools is complex, but says it is a true apples-to-apples comparison of schools, according to an explanation of the methodology posted on the department's website.

Here's how the individual St. Clair Shores schools ranked; a percentile rank of 99, for example, means that 99% of schools statewide scored below that school's result.