The Demopolis City Schools ranked 22nd of 134 in Alabama in the final administration of the Alabama Reading and Math Test in 2013.

The ARMT was a standards-based test given to students in third through eighth grades.

In 2013, 75 percent of Demopolis students scored above average on the test, and another 6 percent were at average. The other 19 percent of students were slightly proficient. No students were below proficient on the test.

“All the credit goes to the commitment of the teachers and staff of this school system,” said Demopolis Superintendent Dr. Al Griffin. “I’m very proud of the gains we’ve made since I got here. We’ve made significant gains since 2011, which was the first year after I came to Demopolis.”

Griffin said there’s always room for improvement, but he’s still happy with how the students performed on the test.

“We’re never satisfied, but I believe this is cause to reflect on the quality of these scores,” he said. “The implementation of using formative assessments with data analysis by our teachers to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of all of our students on an individual level has been key to our improvement.”

Griffin added that the test in 2013 was more rigorous than it was in previous years.

“We held steady or improved for the most part on this test even though it was more rigorous than before,” he said. “I’m very proud of the work of our teachers, staff and students.”

In 2014, students took the ACT Aspire test instead of the ARMT. Griffin said he will use the results from that test when they come in to set the path of students through 2020.

“I’m proud for this system to be where it is,” he said. “I can’t thank the board, our staff, our principals and the community enough for all they do. The Demopolis City Schools Foundation helps tremendously with their grants. It’s a group effort and it takes a lot of effort from everyone to be where we are.”

At several grade levels, there has been a 10-to-15 percent increase in proficiency since 2009 in reading and math scores.

In other local school systems, Marengo County was ranked 30th of the 134 school districts, and Linden was ranked 117th for ARMT scores in 2013.