The Marengo County Board of Education received good news at their Thursday meeting as Cathy Pritchett reviewed their recent status with state report cards. Cathy Pritchett, of the Marengo County Board of Educations Central office was in attendance to let the board know there were two schools in particular that had faired especially well.

“I am so excited and that is why I am here today,” Pritchett said. “We had two schools that have all green cells which means that they met all of the AYP indicators. They both had one red cell, but they were able to appeal them.”

Pritchett said the two schools went through the proper avenues to have the red cells removed and were now completely clear.

“Both schools appealed it and they had them reversed which made them completely green,” Pritchett said. “That means they have made their educational progress and they are ready to go. Those two schools are A.L. Johnson and Sweet Water.”

With the green cells A.L. Johnson is well on its way to where it needs to be. “They have one more year to make all green and they will be out of school improvement completely and they are going to do it this year. They have almost already done it they just need to get all green on the SAT 10 and they will be good to go.”

Pritchett also said by appealing their red cell, Sweet Water is continuing to keep their positive pace.

“Sweet Water had one red cell, but they appealed it and got rid of it and they are good to go,” Pritchett said. “They were not on school improvement and they wont be. It takes two years to get on it and two to get off it.”

Pritchett said while the news was good there will always be room for improvement. She said the schools plan to continue their upward swing.

“There are areas that we are doing really well in and there are some areas where we need improvement,” Pritchett said. “Two of the areas that we are focusing on are reading and math and that is because those are the areas they focus on for accountability.”

Pritchett said the results are a visual aide to the great job the instructors have been doing in the county school system.

“The positive results we are seeing this year are a direct result of our teaching in our schools,” Pritchett said. “We have some excellent teaching going on in the schools. They are getting the job done. The principals are also more aware of what we need to look for in those indicators. We know what we are looking for and we are going to get it done.”

Marengo County School Superintendent Luke Hallmark said they were pleased with the numbers, but wanted to continue to reach for higher standards.

“These numbers are not quite all where we want them to be, but they are within reach,” Hallmark said. “We have got 50 percent of our schools in AYP and we just started AYP. We have one school that reached it academically, but they didn’t reach it on the participation side.”

Hallmark encouraged everyone to continue to look up and set high goals. Hallmark said it is evident that everyone is putting forth the effort to improve and hoped to see this trend continue.

“We are not far, but we do not want to take steps backwards either,” Hallmark said. “We have some teachers that are really doing an excellent job. We have some that have been around for a while and some who have just gotten on board because they are seeing the results of some of the programs we have going on at the school. I think our kids are doing a really good job.”