For public schools around Miami-Dade County, the annual grading process that takes place during the last months of the year is hardly any surprise. After releasing scores from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) to its students, the word “close” couldn’t have been enough to describe Varela’s score of a “B.” According to the School Accountability Report, Varela rose 52 points in the school rating system giving us a total of 520 points, just five points shy of an “A.”

“This isn’t just a high school thing,” said Ms. Connie Navarro, principal. “We’re doing better as a county.”

Also making improvements are high schools like Miami Sunset, who moved up from a “D” to a “B” and Dr. Michael Krop, who jumped from a “C” to an “A.”

Overall, the grading is based on the progress of the students in FCAT testing and whether their levels increased throughout the course of the year. The A+ Plan for Education requires testing of students in grades three through 11 in reading, writing, math and science. Annually all public schools are graded (A, B, C, D, or F) based upon the performance and progress of the students under the light of the exam.

First proposed by former governor Jeb Bush in 1999, The A+ plan uses scores from the FCAT to reward high-performing schools and sanction low-performing ones. It looks into the overall performance of the school’s students, along with the percentage of eligible students who take the test and whether or not students have made annual learning gains in reading and math, with particular attention to the reading and math scores of the lowest 25% of students in the school.

According to administrators, the improvement is the result of the extra steps taken in emphasizing the exam throughout the year and the combined efforts of the students attending tutoring along with the dedication from the teachers themselves.

“It’s the teachers,” said Ms. Nery Fins, assistant principal for curriculum. “They are the ones that are in the classroom teaching their hearts out.”

While the evaluation serves to rank schools based on FCAT improvement, some administrators feel that there should be more on the A+ plan’s grading scale that would define a school as being a successful one.

“It’s a good process just not a complete one that looks at the many successes,” said Ms. Fins. “There are other elements that make a school a school, a great school.”

For now Varela is basking in its improvements and will soon prepare for a new year of testing as reading and math teachers are intensifying their curriculums with new programs, such as the Jamestown Navigator. Navigator, adopted this year through earmarked funds from the state, is a computer/print rich program for 9th and 10th grade intensive reading students. It will work alongside Reading Plus which is being used with the 11th and 12th grade retakers. It is hoped that these programs will help push the students the extra few inches needed to gain us the five points needed to become an “A” school.

“It was a team effort. I think we have the talent and the commitment, and most of all the ability to get an A.,” said Navarro. “What they [the teachers] do when the classroom door closes is when the rubber hits the road.”