Though results are unofficial and some test scores haven’t been counted, school officials say they expect A.L. Brown to reach the state’s expected academic growth level.

But they say the school probably won’t reach exemplary academic growth under state’s ABCs of Accountability standards for the first time in three years.

“That’s not the reason you do what you do,” Principal Janice Carty said Wednesday of receiving state accolades. “You do it because you want the kids to achieve all they can achieve.”

Overall, 59 percent of A.L. Brown’s students scored at or above what the state considers proficient in all the areas tested, a slight increase over last year.

And 88 percent of this year’s sophomores have passed a math and reading competency test required to graduate. That’s up from 75 percent of the same class who passed the test in eighth grade.

Students can continue to take the test through their senior year.

In sophomore English II classes, in which students take state writing tests in March, scores tumbled after rising the past two years, including a big increase last year.

Administrators point out that different sets of students take those tests each year, and that sophomores, especially, are expected to take a lot of tests.

“One thing we think has an impact on testing is we give a lot of tests,”said Julie Smith, an assistant principal and testing coordinator at A.L. Brown.“Starting at the end of March, (sophomores) tested for a month.”

In addition to the writing test, sophomores took the math and reading competency test, a computer competency test and a state sample writing test.

They also took end-of-grade comprehensive math and science tests, on which they didn’t meet the state’s expected growth from eighth-grade math and reading tests.

Carty and Smith say they’ve already begun looking at the numbers and thinking about strategies for next year. Once teachers return to work later this summer, they’ll be included in devising plans to improve scores.

Some of those strategies are already set. Carty said the high school will work more closely with eighth-grade teachers at Kannapolis Middle School and freshmen English teachers to improve writing scores.

The school already offers remedial courses that students who haven’t passed the competency test take in place of an elective.

Administrators will keep looking to teachers for ideas about how to better teach subjects. This year, that led to dividing Algebra I into two classes taught over two semesters instead of one, as it was under the school’s block scheduling.