FAYETTEVILLE — Half of Fayetteville’s schools are recognized as achieving under a new accountability system released Monday by the Arkansas Department of a Education.

Haas Hall Academy, a publicly funded charter school, was recognized as one of five exemplary schools statewide, meaning students demonstrated high performance and high progress on standardized tests for the past three years.

The achieving schools are where all students met goals for performance growth on Benchmark testing last spring. Five schools were listed as needs improvement schools, meaning the they fell short of meeting goals.

Washington Elementary and Fayetteville High schools are on a focus improvement list, although Washington met targets in 2012. Washington can move up the scale to the achieving classification if targets are met in 2013.

At a Monday morning news conference, Tom Kimbrell, state education commissioner, outlined the accountability system approved last summer by the U.S. Department of Education.

The system focuses on closing the achievement gap between students who demonstrate performance or growth each year on standardized tests and those who do not. It replaces the adequate yearly progress system that was in place under No Child Left Behind. Arkansas was among the states that sought relief from the system through waivers after Congress failed to renew No Child Left Behind last year, Kimbrell said.

The focus of the new system is to raise student achievement, narrow the achievement gap and improve the high school graduation rate.

“This waiver does not eliminate accountability,” Kimbrell said. “It helps us to better measure the progress of students.”

Targeted achievement levels in literacy and math are established for each school for two groups of students. One is the entire student body. The other is an at-risk group identified as the Targeted Achievement Gap Group, which includes students with disabilities, English-language learners and those economically disadvantaged. Under the old system, schools had up to 14 subpopulations that had to reach certain levels of performance so the school could meet adequate yearly progress.

Kimbrell said the labels used on schools under the old system are gone.

A school that misses its targets does not mean a school is failing, he emphasized. The data is available to show which students are not making gains and allows teachers and administrators to develop strategies to help all students achieve.

Sarah McKenzie, Fayetteville director of assessment, research and accountability, said Owl Creek School exceeded all its targets to reach achieving status. The school had difficulty meeting adequate yearly progress because of the number of its subpopulations.

Kristin Champion, Owl Creek principal, said teachers and administrators have had a single-minded focus on student growth for the past several years. Under the old system, Owl Creek was considered in school improvement for three consecutive years.

“We want to see that every child grows every year,” Champion said.

The schools that need improvement fell short by only a few students when looking at individual performance, McKenzie said.

Fayetteville High School didn’t meet its math target, especially among students taking geometry.

“This is a better measure,” McKenzie said. “It’s a great improvement over the old system.”

Schools on the improvement list have to develop strategies to raise the performance level of students and narrow the achievement gap.

McKenzie said high school geometry teachers are meeting weekly to find ways to make the subject more relevant and meaningful. The state Education Department also provides support.

Similar meetings are held at Washington where an instructional facilitator and a math coach are working on more focused professional development, she said.