* — After clicking on the link, MPSH’s report card will appear on the FDOE website. Scroll down to find a rectangle labeled “Assessments — Achievement, Growth, and Participation,” click on this rectangle. Next, scroll down to find a chart detailing the results of a state assessment. Above the chart, one may change the year, measure, subject and subgroup.

<> – After clicking on the link, MPSH’s report card will appear on the FDOE website. Scroll down to find where it says “School Grade.” Click on “B” under “2022-23” and at the top of the pop-up click on “Subgroup Summary.”

Last school year, The Panther covered Miami Palmetto Senior High achieving an “A” rating for the first time since 2015. This year, the Florida Department of Education rated MPSH as a “B” school, despite the school’s improvement in test scores. While test scores among Black students at MPSH *improved in all categories* during the 2022-23 school year, a majority of Black students at MPSH failed the Florida Science, Mathematics and English Language Arts assessments. The Hispanic student population at MPSH saw a *slight improvement* in its state Science assessment scores and a slight increase in its failure rate for state Mathematics and English Language Arts assessments.

Between the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years, the Black student population at MPSH improved its state assessment passing rate by 22% in Science, 15% in ELA, 10% in Mathematics and 8% in Social Studies. Still, in the 2022-23 school year, 62% of Black students at MPSH failed the state ELA assessment, 56% failed the state Science assessment, 47% failed the state Social Studies assessment and 68% failed the state Mathematics assessment. <The improvement in test scores among the Black student population at MPSH reflects a grade of “C” from the FDOE for the performance of Black students in 2022-23, an improvement from the “D” grade in 2021-22>.

<The school received a “B” for the performance of Hispanic students, having received an “A” in 2021-22. The Hispanic student population at MPSH improved its pass rate for state assessments by 3% in Social Studies and 4% in Science while decreasing its pass rate by 3% in ELA and Mathematics. The drop from an “A” to a “B” for the performance of Hispanic students at MPSH came at a time when the total percentage of points earned by Hispanic students on state assessments increased from 63% in 2021-22 to 68% in 2022-23>. The state raised the percentage of points required for a subgroup to receive an “A” based on its performance on state assessments for the 2022-23 school year. <MPSH received an “A” for the performance of White, Asian and Multiracial students respectively in 2022-23>.

The state also raised the percentage of points required for a school to receive an “A” overall. This explains why, despite the school’s total percentage of points going from 62% in 2021-22 to 68% in 2022-23, the school still dropped from an “A” to a “B” rating. MPSH Principal Victoria Dobbs said the state’s new requirements came to her attention after the FDOE publicized school grades.

“We improved all of our testing scores and we were at about 68 [percent]. We felt really confident about what we had done and it wasn’t until the day that the scores were released and the school grades were released that all schools were informed, ‘Oh, by the way, we switched it to 70 percent,’” Dobbs said.

Dobbs notes the reason for the higher state standards is because the state believed too many schools reached the previous requirements to achieve a grade of “A.”

“What they say is that [FDOE] looked at that and they were trying to keep it at a bell curve. They had too many schools that were going to be designated ‘A.’ You have too many, so then they moved it on the siding scale to the point where it would definitely eliminate [some schools from becoming ‘A’ schools], at least for the high schools that I know that were all excited to be an ‘A’ again and they’re not [because of the increase in requirements], but they all made it based on the [old] criteria. You can’t let yourself get bogged down with that. You just have to keep working towards whatever the new goal is,” Dobbs said.

MPSH Assistant Principal Daniel Barreras said that this year the number of students in the graduating class who have not passed either the state reading or mathematics test is at the lowest that it has been in recent times. Dobbs looks toward the future, citing the progress that the school has made while working toward new goals.

“If we’re making progress now, you just don’t say it’s good enough. You continue to keep working and kind of keying in. You have to go back and look at what worked and what didn’t work and reassess, and if it’s working, then you continue with that. If not, you bring in other options, other things that are happening in the classroom,” Dobbs said.