WINTON — While not yet official, it appears by all indications that Hertford County Public Schools students are making strides in regards to test scores.

At their meeting held here last week, the Hertford County Board of Education learned that the preliminary numbers of the annual “ABC’s of Education” report showed improvement by the students enrolled in the county’s public education system.

The numbers for End of Course (EOC) and End of Grade (EOG) testing are not official until certified by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) late next month. “Our preliminary raw data projections, which are still subject to all sub-group analysis and verification by DPI, indicate that our regular EOG district wide proficiency averages for reading and math met safe harbor or interim projected goals,” HCPS Superintendent Dr. Michael Basham told the board.

He continued, “We showed significant growth in our EOC district wide average this year as well.”

As an example, Dr. Basham pointed out that Hertford County High School’s preliminary numbers revealed a proficiency rating of 50.26 percent.

“Just two years ago our high school was only at a 35.85 percent proficiency rate; this year’s numbers show a gain of 14.41 percent over that two-year period,” noted the Superintendent. Ron Lane, HCPS Director of Testing and Accountability Services, formally presented the numbers to the board of education.

He later shared more information to the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald about the data, but did not release the actual numbers since those figures are not yet certified by DPI. “I’ve compared some numbers between last year and this year and I can say that we’ve seen growth,” Lane said.

“The ABC proficiency and growth summary projections show that Hertford County Public Schools has met growth status in EOC and EOG.”

Lane added that this was not high growth, but growth in general.

“We still have a ways to go to reach high growth in the testing areas, but we can attain that if we continue to head in the direction we’re going now,” Lane noted.

He said that high growth goal is attainable thanks to new teaching/learning programs HCPS is currently using.

“Some of the innovative programs and strategies we’ve introduced over the past few years have improved classroom instruction and also improved the way our students learn and retain the subject matter,” Lane concluded.