By By BETTY MITCHELL GRAY
Staff Writer
Students in fewer Beaufort County schools passed end-of-grade exams this year, and the system as a whole failed to meet its targets under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, according to a preliminary report released Wednesday by Beaufort County Schools.
As a district, Beaufort County Schools did not make its goals for 2009-2010, with four of 14 schools meeting 100 percent of the federal markers. This was a decrease from 2008-2009 when eight of 14 schools met their goals, according to the report.
Despite the decline, school officials said they are pleased by the improvement shown at some local schools, particularly those that had faced sanctions under the federal law in previous years but no longer do.
“We are very excited by the improvements made by some of our schools over the past year,” said BCS Superintendent Don Phipps. “Fortunately, there are solutions for many of the areas where we fell short. We will use all available resources to further identify ad remove the obstacles that impede our students’ progress.”
Beaufort County Early College High School was the only high school in the county to meet its goals, with all five groups represented at the school meeting their end-of-grade test targets, according to the report. 
This is the second year in a row that the high school met its goals.
Other schools meeting their goals were Bath Elementary School, Chocowinity Primary School and Northeast Elementary School.
Schools not meeting their goals were the Beaufort County Ed Tech Center, Chocowinity Middle School, John Cotten Tayloe Elementary School, John Small Elementary School, Northside High School, P.S. Jones Middle School, Southside High School, S.W. Snowden Elementary School and Washington High School, according to the report.
Eastern Elementary School does not have grade three or higher, therefore its adequate yearly progress is determined by the school their students subsequently attend. Since John Cotten Tayloe School failed to meet its goals, Eastern Elementary failed to meet its goals, according to the report.
Singed into law on Jan. 2, 2002, No Child Left Behind requires states to annually administer standardized tests. School districts and individual schools that receive Title I federal funding must make “adequate yearly progress” in those test scores or face sanctions. Schools receive Title I funds based on the percentage of their student enrollment that qualifies as low-income.
For example, each year, fifth-grade students must do better than previous years in those tests.
No Child Left Behind sanctions include offering students the choice to attend another school, providing supplemental educational services at no cost to qualifying students and other measures, according to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction.
Under No Child Left Behind, adequate yearly progress is determined by a school’s ability to meet its individual target goals, based on the student population at the school.
Schools evaluate students according to race, family income, English proficiency and other factors. If any group falls short on state reading and math tests, the school does not pass, under No Child Left Behind.
In Beaufort County, three schools — The Beaufort County Ed Tech Center, John Cotten Tayloe Elementary School and Northside High School — missed adequate yearly progress because just one single group at each school failed to meet its goal.
At the Beaufort County Ed Tech Center, two of three groups met their goals; at John Cotten Tayloe Elementary School, 24 of 25 groups met their goals, and at Northside High School, 12 of 13 groups met their goals, according to the report.
This all-or-nothing approach to goals has led educators nationwide and members of the Obama administration to consider broad changes in how schools are judged to be succeeding or failing under No Child Left Behind as well as for the elimination of the law’s 2014 deadline for bringing every American child to academic proficiency.
Said Phipps: “It is hard to declare some other schools failures when they missed the overall goal by as little as a single target.”
One Beaufort County school — Northeast Elementary School — met goals for all 17 groups and was removed from school-improvement sanctions in reading and math. A second school — Bath Elementary School — also met goals for all 17 groups and was removed from school-improvement sanctions in math. 
This is the second consecutive year that Northside High School did not meet its goals and the third year in a row that John Small Elementary School, Southside High School and Washington High School did not meet their goals, meaning those schools face possible sanctions.
What those sanctions may be will be determined by the N.C. Department of Public Instruction and outlined in a final report on school progress to be released in August, according to Sarah Hodges, public information officer for Beaufort County Schools.
Once a school fails to meet its goals, it must meet adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years before it is no longer sanctioned.