East Chapel Hill High School is an Honor School of Excellence for the first time — but a miscalculation almost kept them from the title.
On Sept. 8, the high school was confirmed as an Honor School of Excellence, joining three other schools in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School System to be awarded this distinction.
The classification was given after an appeal by the school, which the N.C. Department of Public Instruction originally classed as a School of Excellence, a step below Honor School of Excellence.
Before the appeal, the school’s score as calculated by the state did not meet requirements for the higher distinction.
“There was a glitch in our data that prevented us from making AYP (adequate yearly progress), but we were able to appeal and demonstrate that we had met all the standards for that subgroup,” said Eileen Tully, principal of East Chapel Hill High School.
Classification as a School of Excellence versus an Honor School of Excellence is based on adequate yearly progress reports, measured by No Child Left Behind standards that mark grade level performance for different ethnic and socioeconomic groups.
To be distinguished as an Honor School of Excellence, 90 percent or more of students at a school must also score at or above grade level on end-of-course tests.
“It is very unusual for a high school to be an Honor School of Excellence or even a School of Excellence,” said Stephanie Knott, a spokeswoman for Chapel Hill-Carrboro City schools. “The typically large and diverse populations make this difficult.”
Knott also said adequate yearly progress report standards have been debated since their 2001 creation.
