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By Kris Harrell

The Butler County Schools District just released their accountability reports for this past school year, providing more information about their financial reports, school safety and student achievements.

With the financial report found on the Butler County School District website, viewers can find the cost for expenses made by the school, including employee benefits, materials and supplies and maintenance.  

Information about revenue can also be found within the financial reports, detailing revenue from the state, federal, and local level. 

“In the state of Alabama, you’re required to maintain a one-month operating balance in your financials,” said Butler Schools Superintendent Joesph Eliand.  “We were almost at four months [in the report], which is greatly improved.
“I have actually seen it at one month’s reserve, so we’re doing a great job with that.” 

Additionally, the school district also shared the State Accountability Letter Grades. This report by the Alabama Department of Education assigns schools a letter grade based on academic achievement, academic growth, graduation rate, college and career readiness and chronic absenteeism. 

It is noted that categories such as college and career readiness and graduation rates are a year in arrears, where current scores are based on the previous spring. 

For the 23-24 State Accountability Letter Grades, Butler County received a 72 (C). Within Butler County, here are the school’s scoring according to the report: 

* Georgiana school – 83 (B)
* McKenzie High School – 84 (B)
* Greenville High School – 57 (F)
* Greenville Middle School – 73 (C)
* Greenville Elementary School – 80 (B)
* WO Parmer Elementary School – 78 (C)

“We’re so excited about the growth [in Georgiana],” Eiland said. “They made an unprecedented 11-point gain in their academic achievement and growth at Georgiana school.
“Chronic absenteeism is a huge factor, and we’ve been battling that for ever since Covid,
we’ve been battling chronic absenteeism, and that’s a huge factor in our scores.”

Along with these reports is also the School Safety and Discipline Report (SIR) that tracks incidents throughout the year and disciplinary actions.

“The SIR report is based on the number of referrals that students accumulate at each school, and the school incident report really looks much better than it has in the past,” Eliand said. “Our overall school incident report is much improved. We have fewer discipline measures, fewer expulsions, fewer suspensions. The behavior is heading in the right direction.”

Butler county residents can visit the Butler County school district website at https://www.butlerco.k12.al.us/departments/finance/accountability-reports to view the fiscal year accountability report. Additionally, residents can visit http://www.alabamaachieves.org/ to view Butler County’s SIR and the accountability letter grade.