Last Thursday, Cape Elizabeth High School administrators received an official report from their accreditation agency citing them for fewer deficiencies than initially anticipated.

School administrators were expecting to receive a formal report from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges placing their accreditation on warning status for weaknesses in assessments and curriculum.

Instead, the report received last Thursday cited the school only for shortcomings in written curriculum, said Assistant Principal Mark Tinkham, who has accepted the principal position at Freeport High School and is leaving Cape High School at the end of the school year.

The release of the report caps an eventful month for Cape school administrators, with the school being placed on warning and then being named on a list of the country’s top 1,000 schools.

Last month, Cape High administrators were told their accreditation was on warning status. And last Monday, the school learned Newsweek rated Cape High in magazine’s top 1,000 schools nationwide.

Principal Jeff Shedd first informed the school board in early April that the New England Association of Schools and Colleges was placing the school on warning status for weaknesses in curriculum documentation and assessments. Shedd did not return calls for comment.

Despite the negative evaluations, Tinkham said the bottom line is Cape High is a quality school.

The proof is in the test scores and the number of students continuing onto four-year schools, said Tinkham. Of the 124 members of Cape’s 2005 graduating class, 111 (89.5 percent) entered some form of post-secondary education according to Cape High’s website.

Newsweek’s ratings are based on the ratio of students taking advanced placement or baccalaureate tests compared to graduating students. Annually, Newsweek ranks the top 1,000 high schools nationwide. Cape was ranked 765th, up from 957th last year. Yarmouth, ranked 289th and Bangor, ranked 941st, were also included on the list.

According to Tinkham, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges put Cape’s accreditation on warning status for incomplete curriculum documentation.

A curriculum outlines goals for learning, which is especially important for new teachers, said Tinkham. School administration knew their curriculum needed work. But the state mandates took priority, and attentions were redirected to assessments.

Tinkham said that when he heard the school would be cited for deficiencies in assessments, he was surprised. For three years, the school worked on developing assessments as directed by the state under the Learning Results initiative. “Getting dinged for curriculum, I wasn’t surprised at all…but we’d done a lot of work” on assessments, he said.

Tinkham said he does not where the confusion about the assessments originated.

Cape High has a history of accumulating mixed evaluations. Tinkham said this jerky ride is par for the course. In 2004, the Maine Department of Education named Cape High the only Blue Ribbon school in the state and then a few months later, the school was placed on the list of failing schools according to national No Child Left Behind education standards.

“The reality is Cape is a very strong school system,” said Tinkham.

Cape Elizabeth Assistant Vice Principal Mark Tinkham has accepted the principal position at Freeport High School. He will finish up the school year at Cape before beginning his new job.