Bowling Green High School and Bowling Green Junior High School are getting help from the state after test results in September showed that some student groups are falling behind their peers.

“It gives us an opportunity to once again refocus, see where those gaps are and try to raise student achievement in those areas,” Bowling Green Independent School District Superintendent Gary Fields said.

With the release of state assessment data, both schools were labeled as needing Targeted Support and Improvement. That label means the schools have at least one student group performing as poorly as schools in the bottom 5 percent statewide.

In this case, students with disabilities, English learner students and African-American students were found to need additional support.

Both schools will need to complete improvement plans and move out of the status in three years. Otherwise, they’ll automatically become Comprehensive Support and Improvement schools, a label for schools performing in the bottom 5 percent, or, in the case of high schools, those that have a graduation rate below 80 percent.

On Monday, the district’s board of education began the process by convening a Comprehensive District Improvement Plan Committee.

The district puts together an overall improvement plan each year informed by individual school improvement plans. However, this year the Kentucky Department of Education will be more involved in the process because of the district’s two TSI schools.

“We have a meeting next week with a person from KDE who will come down and talk to us specifically about the extra requirements that will be required for those two schools,” Fields said. “We’re not real sure what those are going to be until next week.”

Between Warren County Public Schools and the Bowling Green Independent School District, there were 13 schools labeled as needing Targeted Support and Improvement. Students with disabilities were the most common group listed as needing additional support between those schools.

No local schools were labeled as needing Comprehensive Support and Improvement. The results released in September come as the state is transitioning to a new school evaluation system that will be in place next school year.

Going forward, all of the Bowling Green district’s schools will put together their annual improvement plans, which will help develop the district’s overall improvement plan. Fields said that plan will be up for approval by the district’s board of education in January.