North Beach School Supt. Deborah Holcomb last week publicly outlined the specific challenges the district faces because of several critical shortcomings in student performance, graduation rates and absenteeism.

In a report to the North Beach School District Board of Directors on Oct. 17, Holcomb noted that data tracking the district at all levels by the state shows North Beach needs to improve.

“We have some work to do academically,” she said.

While there have been some recent improvements in areas like sixth grade math, there also have been some areas where the district needs to make improvements.

Four-year graduation rates (76.1 percent) are below the state average (79.1 percent) for similar districts. The district also falls farther behind the state average in five-year graduation rates, Holcomb pointed out.

Comparing all districts across the state for rate of unexcused absenteeism, the state average is 16.7 percent, while North Beach is at 26.5 percent.

Of the 44 districts in the surrounding geographic region, North Beach also has a high ninth grade course failure rate (31.5 percent) as opposed to the average (22.5 percent).

“That’s a big predictor when you start to look at the first rating period in ninth grade. … If you target those kids, the research shows they are most likely to get across the finish line. You can’t wait, because when they get to 10th grade they are already behind,” Holcomb said.

That is something the district is working on this year as the eighth graders at the junior high level move up to high school “so that everybody is paying attention to the kids most at-risk of failing,” she said.

Nearly 50 people were in attendance at the board meeting, many of them who returned from the previous board meeting when the public raised concerns about a number of changes in the district.

Holcomb pointed out that North Beach also falls below the Educational Service District regional average for discipline, with 7 percent of North Beach students having been suspended, compared to 3.7 percent statewide. Special education suspension rates were 14 percent, compared to 7.5 percent statewide.

“We have some work to do there,” Holcomb said. “The high school is now doing some great things in terms of the structure and strategies that will work for kids.”

The most interesting statistic to Holcomb is that children entering kindergarten in the North Beach district are outperforming the state average — 71 percent of kindergartners come in prepared to move forward into the school system, as opposed to a state average of 47 percent.

“There is a big question to ask here: If we’re doing so well with our kindergartners, what happens between kindergarten and twelfth grade?” Holcomb said.

The district’s focus this year is on vocabulary, Holcomb said.

Board member Linda Poplin requested that Holcomb present such information annually.

“This is priority, and student achievement is what we are about,” she said. “This has got to be our goal.”

Board member Doreen Cato also asked Holcomb to outline the school improvement plan and the school rating system. Currently, on a five-point rating scale, North Beach Jr. High School is a level 3, considered to be in the bottom five percent of the state. The senior high school is at level 4, and Ocean Shores Elementary is at level 1, based on previous data.

The state is now going through a new rating system, Holcomb explained, and she could not say how the schools might be labeled in the future. Under the former system, if a school reached level 5, the board then would have to face alternatives such as staff changes, state-order reconstitution or cnging the entire school structure.

“When you do that, it’s very disruptive,” Holcomb said. “What’s scary is that in a place like North Beach, if that were to ever happen, we struggle to get teachers as it is. It would be even harder to get what we need out here.”

The goal, she added, is to move forward with some targeted strategies until the new ratings come out. For example, one issue being worked on across the school system is vocabulary this year, and each school is now working on a literacy plan.

“The data is not going to change so we can begin planning for that,” Holcomb said. “… We have a mission around literacy. We have a lot of kids at the junior/senior high who cannot read at grade level. So we know we have to do some very targeted work with all kids.”