Lehighton Area High School's School Performance Profile, and ranking among Carbon County schools, dropped over the past year, but are the statistics misleading?

Tim Tkach, director of curriculum, instruction and grants, said that may be the case as Lehighton's juniors actually increased their test scores on the algebra, biology and English language arts Keystone exams last year."It's a very convoluted process," Tkach said of the SPP calculations during a presentation to the school board Monday night. "Yes, we slipped in our SPP score, but all of our test scores did go up. We're not satisfied though. We still want to see growth across the board."The SPP is based heavily on state assessment scores, but also includes college readiness tests, industry standards-based assessments, graduation, promotion and attendance rates, as well as evidence of offering rigorous courses as other factors in the calculation.Only schools with 11th-grade students received an SPP score in 2014-15.Lehighton's score dropped from 78.3 in 2013-14 to 72.4 in 2014-15, dropping it from fourth in the county to eighth.As Tkach indicated, however, Lehighton improved its percentage of students scoring advanced or proficient in algebra from 68.24 to 75.31, in biology from 66.45 to 75.31 and in English language arts from 75.82 to 85.8.Those percentages rank Lehighton first in the county for biology and second for English language arts."I think a major problem is that schools that already have a high percentage of students scoring advanced or proficient are not getting points for growth," Tkach said. "Districts are penalized for maintaining academic success."Tkach used Emmaus School District as prime example.Emmaus' SPP score dropped from 92.5 to 78.6, but the percentage of students scoring advanced or proficient on Keystone Exams stayed above 80 percent."It's hard to keep growing when you're at 85 percent already," Tkach said. "The things we really look at are, is our curriculum aligned to Pennsylvania core standards, and are we assessing students with the depth of knowledge that needs to be done to take us to the next level?"Lehighton is constantly looking at its curriculum, Tkach said, trying to increase rigor and get students into advanced placement and dual enrollment courses before they graduate high school."It's always really telling when college freshman come back and tell you they are in advanced-level classes and they are much more prepared than other students," Lehighton Superintendent Jonathan Cleaver said. "We had a student come back and thank our science department because she was much more prepared for her lab reports at the University of Pennsylvania. She was doing stuff that she did while at Lehighton."According to Tkach, the aggressive academic approach will continue as the high school is looking to add an advanced placement chemistry course."We have ordered all the necessary materials to make that a reality," he said. "We want to give our students the maximum number of opportunities possible."