All five schools in the Pike County School System and the overall system have made AYP for the school year 2011-2012.

Adequate Yearly Progress or AYP is a measurement defined by the United States federal “No Child Left Behind Act” that allows the U.S. Department of Education to determine how every public school and school district in the country is performing academically according to results on standardized tests.

Dr. Mark Bazzell, superintendent of Pike County Schools, said he is pleased with the results that verify that the Pike County School System is meeting the performance standards set by “No Child Left Behind.”

“While we are pleased with the results, we know there is always room for improvement,” Bazzell said. “We will look for areas where we need to improve and work on those areas.”

Making AYP for 2011-12 was an improvement over the previous year when both Goshen and Pike County high schools failed to make AYP.

However, not making AYP was not due to academic standards, Bazzell said.

“It had to do with the drop-out rate, which is a goal set by AYP that we have no control over,” he said. “A lot of the influences on at-risk students have nothing to do with school.”

Bazzell said the Pike County School System has several dropout prevention programs in place and, hopefully, these programs are making a positive difference.

“We try new programs that are working for other systems,” he said. “One new program that we will implement is a credit recovery program. This program gives a student who is behind in credits to earn credits using ACCESS or other technologies. However, I prefer that students learn by the more traditional method.”

Bazzell said the Pike County Schools are committed to dropout prevention and have preventive services in place, as well as personal and academic counseling.

Bazzell said he is very please that the graduation rate numbers improved last year and is expecting another good year in 2012-13.