Why Did Lake Orion High School Receive a 'Red' Rating?

The Michigan Department of Education released color-coded school and school district ratings yesterday.

The new rating system, called School Accountability Scorecards, assigns each school and district a color based on a combination of student assessments, graduation rates, attendance rates and other factors. The system replaces the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).

After releasing this data, Patch received questions about how the colors were awarded, specifically about Lake Orion High School's "Red" rating. 

According to the state, Lake Orion High School received 39 out of 64 possible points, or 61 percent of possible points, which would put it in the "Yellow" rating.

However, according to Chris Janzer, an assessment specialist at the Michigan Department of Education, the school received "Red" ratings in three subgroup areas, which brought its overall rating down. 

"The Students with Disabilities subgroup did not meet the 95% participation requirement in writing and science, and the Economically Disadvantaged subgroup did not meet the 95% participation requirement in science," Janzer wrote in an email.

You can find more information about audit checks above, in a page from the department of education's guide to scorecards. It details how different scorecard components can affect a school's overall rating.