After originally being released in October, then put on hold because of questions on the accuracy of data for a few schools, Indiana Department of Education finally released A-F accountability report card information for the 2013-14 school year Nov. 5. The data was released publicly after approval by the Indiana State Board of Education.

Wawasee showed improvement as a corporation compared to 2012-13 and also within three schools, while two schools were given lower grades compared to the previous year.

Wawasee Middle School, given an F in 2012-13 and placed in school improvement status by the state, showed significant improvement and was granted a B grade for 2013-14. Several improvement steps taken by the school including focusing more on reading skills among other things paid dividends.

Milford School improved from a D to a B and Syracuse Elementary improved from D to C. The Wawasee corporation’s grade improved from C to B.

Wawasee High School, an A school the last two years, was given a B for 2013-14 but narrowly missed qualifying for an A. Summary data for the high school’s report card shows up as an A (3.60 points) and math shows a 4.5 because of a .5 bonus for end of course assessment improvements from 10th grade to graduation. But the bonus was not added to the summary data on the final report card and apparently a school cannot score any higher than a 4.0 in a given subject, so therefore the school was not given the .5 bonus that would have been enough to qualify for an A.

North Webster Elementary was given a B in 2012-13, but dropped to a C in 2013-14.

Wawasee administrators are pleased to see improvement in letter grades, but have for some time questioned the fairness and accuracy of letter grades issued by IDOE. They say the grades have bounced around too much from year to year with a lack of consistency.

Glenda Ritz, Indiana superintendent of public instruction, has promised changes to the accountability report cards and indicated as such when she visited North Webster Elementary in September.