The county’s students test well above state averages
State standardized tests show Gilmer County students are “well above state averages in practically everything,” Gilmer County Schools (GCS) Superintendent Dr. Brian Ridley said.
“Coming out of COVID, we’ve really struggled and made some improvements,” he said.
In the 2023-2024 school year, Georgia moved away from Common Core math standards. Since then, its student math scores have improved for two school years in a row, according to the Georgia Department of Education.
Math scores in Gilmer are at 96.7 percent in the upper ranges of performance, Ridley said. The state of Georgia is at 78.6 percent.
“We’re doing very well,” he said.
Although GCS’s Milestones scores have gone up in the last few years, they have leveled off. Given the curriculum switch and several missed school days last year due to bad weather, this performance is no surprise, he said.
“In most areas, we’ve seen our performance basically stagnate,” he said. “We’re anticipating some good growth this year. We’ve got a lot of new things in place, and we’re making really good strides.”
Milestones measures more than just school attendance rates.
One place the school can improve is in attendance rates.
Currently, GCS ranks at 126 out of 180 Georgia school districts.
“Last year was a very unusual winter,” Ridley said. “We missed seven or eight days of school.”
The Milestones tests make no distinction between excused and unexcused absence, he said. In Gilmer, poorer attendance rates on Milestones don’t mean kids are skipping school for no reason.
“We’re very proud of what our kids are accomplishing and we’re setting them up for even greater levels of experience,” Ridley said.
GCS has some of the lowest rates of misbehavior in school requiring discipline in the state.
“We have one of the lowest rates of discipline in the state,” Ridley said.