Due to recent changes in proficiency target goals for Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) a majority of Edgecombe County Public Schools (ECPS) didn't meet the new requirements.

The preliminary results released Monday show that only two out of 14 schools met the goals set by AYP.

AYP is a testing scale used under the federal No Child Left Behind Act to measure what level students are testing at in grades three through eight and at the high school level.

The type of test that measure AYP are end-of-grade test for grades three through eight and end-of-course test for high school.

The AYP scores are determined by the testing proficiency of the schools as a whole and nine other distinct groups. The different groups are white, black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian, multiracial, economically disadvantaged students, limited English proficient students or students with disabilities.

A student can fall into more than one of these categories and lower the AYP standing of the school.

The makeup of the groups that a school has depends on if there are 40 or more children that belong to that category.

The high school figures for reading and math are complete making Edgecombe Early College the only school to completely meet the AYP target.

The preliminary reading scores for grades three through eight aren't complete but the math results indicate that Phillips Middle School was the only other school to meet the target for mathematics.

Director of Federal Programs for ECPS Barbara Hardison said that the high school AYP figures are complete because the English I standards were already revised earlier in the year.

Although the results reflect that 85.7 percent of ECPS are under the targets, all schools except SouthWest Edgecombe High and North Edgecombe High would have met the previous AYP standards.

“Many of our other schools were very close to meeting their targets and in fact eight schools achieved 70 percent or more of the target goals,” said Superintendent Craig Witherspoon.

The new proficiency standards were reset this month and increased from 65.8 to 77.2 for grades three through eight and 70.8 to 80.5 for high school.

The proficiency targets are scheduled to increase every three years with the maximum target goal of 100 set for the 2013-14 school year.

"One of the advantages at that point is that all the states will be at the same level," Hardison said.