ELIZABETHTON, Tenn. (WJHL) – In December, Tennessee released its school letter grades along with the graduation rates for the 2021-22 school year. According to the reports, Carter County Schools had the 8th highest dropout rate at 15.1%

But the director of schools says there is more to the schools than just their state grade.

“There’s a lot of things that we’re doing on a positive,” Brandon Carpenter, director of Carter County Schools, said. “And I want to make sure that we address all areas of concern. But at the same time, we want to grow those areas that we’re succeeding in.”

According to the grade reports, Carter County Schools received six Bs, six Cs, and three Ds. Carpenter said the schools could have been different if not for state changes to the grading system.

“I think, had the formula stayed the same, with the growth percentage, instead of achievement, it made a little difference for us,” Carpenter said. “And we’d have a couple of As and Bs at 80%.”

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Regarding the dropout rates, Carpenter said that number can be attributed to the school district’s online learning platform.

“When we started investigating those numbers, a lot of it had to do with our online academy,” Carpenter said. “When you put together an online academy and a pandemic, you’re going to have some areas of concern. I think when you look at our traditional building settings and the actual graduation rates in those buildings, we were average and right at it with other systems.”

Carpenter has already started looking for a way to fix those rates with the online learning format.

“We’re going to be using more in-person teaching,” Carpenter said. “That will hire two additional teachers with that plan. So we hope to have teachers in front of students more in our online academy.”

Carpenter said that he believes the school system is heading in the right direction.

“Overall I was pleased with our performance,” Carpenter said. “But of course, we have some areas we need to look at.”

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