Improvement made, but three schools still have an AYP status
Date: 9/28/2009
By Courtney Llewellyn
Reminder Assistant Editor
EAST LONGMEADOW The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has a lofty goal of seeing all students at all testing levels reach 100 percent proficiency by the year 2014.
Each year, the administrators of the five East Longmeadow Public Schools meet to review test scores and monitor how well their students are faring on this quest.
The schools are in Cycle VI of NCLB, and their work is monitored through Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) reports. This year, there was good news and some not so good news.
The good news? All MCAS scores from the state's standardized tests for grades three through eight and grade 10 were above the state averages.
Two schools in East Longmeadow, Mountain View and the high school, continue to have no status under AYP, which is the best rating a school can have.
In the three schools that do have a status, progress has been made - the numbers just aren't at the levels NCLB wants them to be.
"Being 100 percent proficient is a good goal, but it's the law as well," Superintendent Edward Costa stated. "It's a utopian task."
Elaine Santaniello, director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment in the town's schools, noted that 54 percent of all schools in Massachusetts did not make AYP in the 2008-09 academic year.
Judy Fletcher, principal of Meadow Brook, which houses kindergarten through second grade, explained that her school receives an AYP rating based on how the third graders that have moved on from that school fare on the MCAS tests.
Meadow Brook is in year one of the "improvement" rating, based on the math scores received by those in the federally divided "special education subgroup."
"We've got a new math curriculum, and we're addressing the areas for improvement," Assistant Principal Holly Martin said.
Also receiving an "improvement" rating was Mapleshade Elementary, for scores in English language arts that did not reach this year's NCLB goals. The rating comes from the year before's test results, so even though this year the school reached its goal, it takes two years before the status can be dropped.
Principal Brenda Houle said she felt that individual benchmark assessments in reading really helped her students excel this year.
"We need to make it one more year before we can jump for joy," she added.
The not so good news comes from the middle school, where the "special education subgroup" is currently in year one of "improvement" status for English language arts and in year two of "restructuring" for math. If improvement is not made in math next year, the school will fall to the lowest rating category, which will lead to state takeover.
"Dozens of schools have already hit bottom," Costa stated. "We don't want to keep sliding."
Although it appears dire, Costa noted that there is a silver lining at Birchland Park. Students in two subgroups improved their scores this year.
"We saw success, but NCLB is 'perfection from everybody, all the time.' Students did falter in other areas," he said in an interview Reminder Publications. "It's like our progress doesn't matter because other groups faltered."
He added that value added incentives to the NCLB Act will recognize progress like this in the future, however.
How do the three schools with statuses plan to improve? Costa said he currently meets once a week with the principals of Meadow Brook, Mapleshade and Birchland Park to help them develop more rigorous plans and goals.
"We know ... the bar is set awfully high," Costa said. "Our job at the East Longmeadow Public Schools is to help students meet that challenge."
All five principals will present their school improvement goals at the Oct. 19 meeting of the School Committee, and a breakdown of last year's MCAS scores will be discussed at the committee's meeting on Oct. 5. Both meetings will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the School Committee's Conference Room in the high school.
