In 2008, when Richmond County Schools was handed its No Child Left Behind evaluations, only four of the system’s schools were determined to have made sufficient academic progress over the course of the 2007-08 school year.

Preliminary 2008-09 results released Tuesday show half of Richmond County Schools individual campuses meeting Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in the federal evaluation this year.

Ten of the 19 schools receiving results Tuesday met the federal marker, while the status of Richmond County Ninth Grade Academy is still undetermined.

The county’s elementary schools fared the best in the evaluations.

Ashley Chapel, Cordova, Fairview Heights, L.J. Bell, Mineral Springs, Monroe Avenue, and Rohanen Primary elementary schools all made AYP, while Washington Street and West Rockingham missed by one target.

Ellerbe Middle was the only system middle school to meet AYP. Rohanen Middle missed the mark by one target, while Hamlet and Rockingham middle schools missed by two targets.

The county’s high schools did not fare so well in the evaluations.

The Ninth Grade Academy is yet to be evaluated, but Richmond Senior High made 14 of its 19 targets, Leak Street made none of its three targets and the Richmond County Transitional School made one of its two targets.

The Richmond County Early College was the only high school to make AYP. It met all four of its targets.

Schools officials touted the improvement over last year in a press release Tuesday.

“We can take pride in seeing this type of increase in our AYP standing,” RCS Superintendent Dr. George Norris said. “The number of schools making all of their target goals more than doubled from last year. If these preliminary results are an accurate measure, then our schools have definitely shown improvement.”

The measure of AYP depends on a confluence of factors in the school, such as proficiency on standardized testing, four year graduation rates and participation rates on tests.

Students are assigned to subgroups formed along ethnic, social class and attributes such as limited English speaker and disabled. A student group is formed when there are 40 students who attend the school more than 140 days, and their test scores are figured into the school’s scores.

All students are at least counted in two groups, the school as a whole group and his/her racial group. They may also belong to the economically disadvantaged subgroup, the disabled subgroup or another subgroup.

All of these subgroups must then live up to the standards set as a whole, and independently of each other, for a school to make AYP. If just one student group in one subject doesn’t meet the targeted proficiency, the school doesn’t make AYP.

For instance, if the subgroup of economically disadvantaged students at a school do not make proficiency in math or reading, then the school is shut out from a favorable evaluation.

Thus, it is more difficult for schools with a large number of subgroups to make AYP.

A complete breakdown of this information is available at the North Carolina Department for Public Instruction’s website.

The percentage of schools making AYP in Richmond County does lag behind those of school systems in surrounding counties, the DPI website shows.

In Scotland County, 14 of the district’s 20 schools made AYP. Stanly County saw 16 of its 21 schools make the mark. Anson County Schools got positive AYP results on seven of its 11 schools.

Montgomery County also had half of its schools make AYP, five out of 10. Moore County’s statistics were not available Tuesday.