Members of the Alabama State Board of Education voted Thursday to table a motion that would have adopted A to F report cards for the state’s schools that had been a concern to Baldwin County Schools leaders and educators across the state of Alabama.

Several state school board members said they had reservations about implementing the report card system that was mandated by the state legislature in 2012.

School officials across the state had raised concerns with the board members about the proposed grading system, including problems they felt were inherent in the ACT ASPIRE testing data that was being used to comprise part of the score.

At a recent Baldwin County Board of Education work session, Baldwin County’s Academic Dean Joyce Woodburn said the ACT ASPIRE tests were perhaps not the best indicator of what’s going on in the classrooms.

“I believe with all of my heart we are doing great things in our schools,” Woodburn said. “We have excellent teachers. However, the data does not reflect that so my thoughts about this is that the ASPIRE is not aligned like they say it is to the college and career readiness standards.”

With the state school board tabling the report cards for now, the report card scores due to be released in December have been delayed indefinitely.

Baldwin County Superintendent Eddie Tyler said that was news he was happy to hear.

“It’s certainly a welcomed bit of good news that I’m sure will resonate well throughout the state of Alabama,” Tyler said. “I think we should compliment our state board of education for the smart move of delaying this implementation so that our new state superintendent can have the ability to analyze the data and the system and provide feedback on how to move forward.”

Tyler said even though the report card grading system had been under development for several years, there were still several questions that education officials across the state had about its implementation.

“This has been worked on for the better part of two years and there still seemed to be so many changes and moving parts to it,” Tyler said. “I think this will really help calm many of the concerns so many of us across the state were having.”

Only one state school board member voted against tabling the resolution - Matthew Brown, who represents District 1 (which includes Baldwin County) on the board.

Brown said that while he did share some of the concerns about the ACT ASPIRE tests and the data they showed, his main concern was following the law.

“This law to have these report cards was passed in 2012 and supposed to be implemented in 2013,” Brown said. “Here it is 2016, and we’re 3.5 years late and we’re kicking it down the road again.”

Brown said moves like the one taken in tabling the motion were one of the reasons state leaders don’t take the school board seriously.

“Part of our job is to uphold the law, and we haven’t been doing that,” Brown said. “It hurts our credibility when we continue to do what we’re charged by the legislature to do.”