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"F" School Moves Up To A-Rated School

Posted: 4:39 pm EDT June 18, 2009Updated: 8:31 pm EDT June 18, 2009

Florida school grades just came out and they show Mollie Ray Elementary moved from an F-rated school to an A-rated school.

Mollie Ray school officials said it took a lot of mentoring. Other than one alternative school, Mollie Ray was the districts only F-rated school last year and for the district, it's a relief that Mollie Ray wiped the slate clean.

Nadine Norvelus received the highest score on the writing portion of the FCAT in her fourth grade class.


THE GRADES: Florida School Grades Website

The Mollie Ray student is just one of the students that helped bring up her school to an A-grade. Norvelus says she hopes it quiets some of the unkind words about her school.

"We were F-rated now there an "A", now people can stop talking about us," she said.

Nadine's mom, Rita Devellien, is equally pleased.

"I'm still shocked they've been working, and I'm glad this year they got it," said Rita Devellien.

There was plenty of incentive; another "F" could have meant state oversight. The first "F" got the district to offer bonuses to teachers to sign on and stay at Mollie Ray to help it turn around. Each of those bonuses was about $2,000.

There could be a third and final bonus for teachers who had the biggest academic gains. However, Principal Kathy Shuler, who was hand-picked by the superintendent, says some of the greatest help came from volunteers.

"We had our community come and volunteer in the classroom. We had tutoring after school, during school, more time on math, more time on reading," she said.

The school even had eye exams and they found that 40 to 60 students needed glasses and 80 percent were in grades, three, four and five.

Donors came together to make sure there was no barrier to learning.

Three high schools moved from "D" to "B" during the FCAT. Unfortunately, Jones and Evans high schools weren't in that number.

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