Since its discovery of which schools are
”
program improvement,
”
the Califo-rnia Department of Educa-tion has been flooded with
appeals.
And while there are four schools in San Benito County that are
considered program improvement, there is disagreement throughout
the state and nation about which schools must deal with sanctions
from the federal government.
Since its discovery of which schools are “program improvement,” the Califo-rnia Department of Educa-tion has been flooded with appeals.
And while there are four schools in San Benito County that are considered program improvement, there is disagreement throughout the state and nation about which schools must deal with sanctions from the federal government.
After a school does not meet certain targets for more than two consecutive years, the school’s administration must send a letter notifying parents that their child’s school is considered program improvement.
Local schools that fall under this category are Calaveras School, R.O. Hardin School, San Juan School and Spring Grove School, according to updated information released late last week.
San Juan has already sent letters while Spring Grove will send letters this week. Officials with the Hollister School District have held off notifying parents because of miscalculation issues at the state level, according to Judith Barranti, superintendent of the district.”We’re waiting to see if the state gets its information together,” she said.
Because of a programming error in the Aug. 15 release of AYP data, the department of education miscalculated the number of schools that will be placed into PI. The state is still reviewing results and has until the middle of September to rule on any appeals.
“Anytime you have anything new, it’s going to have some glitches,” said Jackie Munoz, superintendent of the Aromas-San Juan Unified School District. “We’re going to wait and decipher what we need to do at the district level.”
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Schools had until Friday to appeal PI placement. Officials at Spring Grove School attempted to appeal via fax Friday.
“They are swamped,” said Tom Guajardo, superintendent of the North County Joint Unified School District.
PI means students at public schools did not meet targets on standardized tests. Scores on these tests are calculated into a target, referred to as Adequate Yearly Progress. If a school fails to meet its AYP for two years in a row, it is categorized as a PI school. AYP and PI are parts of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, or NCLB.
Meeting a school’s AYP consists of several factors, including the California High School Exit Exam, graduation rates, Standardized Testing And Reporting test results and Academic Performance Index numbers. The type of factors used vary from state to state.
AYP Phase I results were reported Aug. 15 and are based largely on the STAR results. To meet its AYP, each of a school’s subgroups must meet a proficiency level in math and English. The level is 13.6 percent proficient-or-above in English for elementary and middle schools and 11.2 percent for high schools. For math, elementary and middle schools must meet a proficieny-or-above level of 16.0 and high schools must reach 9.6 percent.
There are 10 subgroups, including racial categories as well as English Language Learners, socio-economically disadvantaged and students with disabilities. If one subgroup does not meet its proficiency, the whole school fails its AYP.
For instance, all racial subgroups at San Juan School met the proficiency-or-above levels, but only 13.1 percent of socio-economically disadvantaged students scored at the level in English – they needed to be at 13.6 percent.
Also taken into account is the school’s participation rate, which has to be 95 percent in each of the subgroups. Some schools can miss their AYP because of low participation not because of low proficiency. However, the county’s four PI schools did miss at least one level of proficiency.
Based on information released by the department of education, there are 1,135 schools in the state considered PI, with 3,960 not in or exiting PI.
The goal of NCLB is to have all students in all subgroups across the nation testing at proficient-or-above by the 2013-14 school year.
“There’s a lot of opportunity, PI or not, to focus on our test scores and our standards – frankly, it’s what we need to be teaching,” Barranti said.
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If a parent receives a letter stating the school their child is attending is a PI school, they may request to have the student transferred to another school in the district that is not a PI school. The district must pay for the transportation, up to a certain amount. Since Spring Grove is the only school in its district, officials have a memo of understanding with the HSD for the transfers. If a parent at San Juan School requests the transfer, the only other school of choice in the district is Aromas School, which is nearing capacity, according to Munoz.
An issue that is unclear to some is that requests to transfer are not first-come, first-serve. The transfers are meant to help at-risk students, Munoz said, and students are evaluated on need.
Spring Grove appealed its PI placement based on four grounds, including a discrepancy that says the district met its AYP while the school did not, even though the district and school populations are the same; API estimates show socio-economically disadvantaged students made big improvements, so officials argue AYP numbers should show the same; and the Safe Harbor provision that allows English Language Learners that have been redesignated as fluent to be categorized as English Language Learners for three years after the fluency redesignation for the purposes of the AYP – something Spring Grove officials did not know about at the time of the STAR test in May.
The ASJUSD decided not to appeal San Juan’s PI placement because it wouldn’t have made a difference, Munoz said.
Neither San Juan nor Spring Grove have received requests for transfers.
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Most educators agree the best intervention is effective teaching. To help target groups reach their AYP goals, Spring Grove officials are focusing on effective teaching, differential instruction and after-school programs.
“If a concept or skill is not explained enough, it’s an uphill battle to undo,” Guajardo said about effective teaching.
Part of PI also includes spending 10 percent of a school’s funds on professional development and providing supplemental services to all eligible students. San Juan is using the required 10 percent for staff development, especially focusing in English Language development. For most schools, English Language Learners and socio-economically disadvantaged students are the subgroups needing the most help and improvement.
Schools are also focusing on analyzing the numbers to give meaning to the tests.
“The data itself is worthless. It’s what you do with it,” Guajardo said.
To view updated information on the AYP results or to see a list of schools considered PI, visit www.cde.ca.gov.
