Thirty-nine area schools are on this year’s “low 300” list and will have to extend school hours next year.
The list contains the 300 schools in the state with the lowest reading scores.
State law requires school districts to provide extra reading time at these schools.
Twenty-nine of the underperforming schools are in Palm Beach County, four are in St. Lucie County, three in Okeechobee County, two in Indian River County and one in Martin County.
In twelve of the area schools, less than one out of four students were reading at grade level.
The lowest score was at Belle Glade Excel Charter School where one out of every sixteen students was reading at grade level.
The school districts will have to spend extra money to pay teachers for the extended hours. The school day will be extended by a half-hour.
Find out if your school is on the list. The number beside a school's name is the percentage of students reading at grade level.
Palm Beach County Superintendent's response
The decision to extend school hours for 29 Palm Beach County schools has a lot of parents talking.
Many have taken to social media to share their concerns on the extra half hour of reading instruction being tacked on to the school day.
The measure applies to the 300 schools statewide that have the lowest reading scores.
Palm Beach County is home to twenty-nine of these schools, more than any district in the state except for Hillsborough county.
Palm Beach schools Superintendent Robert Avossa talked to WPTV’s Andrew Ruiz about the low marks and why so many area schools made the list.
“I’m not surprised that we had that number of schools on the list, we’ve seen this coming. Two years ago when I got here I did an analysis of our reading program for pre-k through 3rd and was shocked that we had 48 different approaches we were using. we feel that extending the school day is part of the solution, but we don’t think it should just be for a year” said Avossa.
The Superintendent said he would be in favor of schools adding a full hour of class time, for more than just one year.
State law requires districts to extend school days but doesn’t provide additional funding, meaning the district will have to come up with additional money to pay teachers for the added class time.
