Originally Written: Dec. 18 2024
First Appeared: Volume 22, Issue 1, published Jan. 13 2025
Last Updated: Jan. 13, 2025
In 2018 the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) began annually releasing report cards for public schools. It rates the schools’ performance on a five star scale. UHS has once again received a rating of five stars from the MSDE for the 2023-2024 school year. What does this mean? What will Urbana continue to do to keep this rating?
Schools are measured on how well they are doing in five different categories according to the MSDE, with different points awarded to each category. These categories are Academic Achievement, Graduation Rate, Progress in English Proficiency, Readiness for Post-Secondary Success, and School Quality and Student Success. A school can earn up to 100 points, with schools who achieve 75 or more points receiving 5 star status. UHS received 75.9 points for the 2023-2024 report card.
In regards to our school’s achievements the Principal, Ms. Donna Clabaugh, explained that, “We are strong in students that are on track for graduation and for our graduation rate. Those are really areas of strength for us. We are [additionally] very strong in language arts achievement.”
Further Clabaugh explained that the annual report cards, while they don’t provide schools with more funding they can be very helpful, “Any point of data we get you celebrate and you say, ‘Yeah, great we’re doing really good here, our kids are on track. But, hey we really need to do better here.’ And you look at ways to do better in those categories.”
So where does Urbana need to improve?
A very large area of concern for administration is school attendance, especially the issues of chronic-absenteeism. Chronic-absenteeism the school defines as students who miss over 18 days of instruction over the course of the school year, whether excused or not.
Clabaugh emphasized that councilors and central office work hard to prevent these absences, with her explaining that, “When we start to see those patterns, we reach out a lot to kids and families to find out ‘Why do you not want to come to Urbana High School?’”
A lot of discovering why students don’t want to be at UHS is done through the annual school survey which was sent out in Oct. However, this survey can often be less than helpful. Students only answer questions through multiple choice, which doesn’t really tell administration how it should improve. The school is currently working on a new survey to be sent out to students in Feb., one in which students are able to offer written responses and direct advice to the school administration. Administration hopes this will give them the necessary information to make this school one that students want to attend.
