5 SVSU schools fail to hit AYP goal
DAWSON RASPUZZI
Posted:05/11/2010 11:00:28 PM EDT
Tuesday May 11, 2010
BENNINGTON -- Five Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union schools failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress again this year, according to data released by the state Department of Education Tuesday.
Mount Anthony Union Middle School and High School failed to meet AYP for the sixth consecutive year, Molly Stark Elementary missed for a third year, and Bennington Elementary and Pownal Elementary failed to meet AYP for a second year by not meeting targets set by the state, as required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
31 percent don’t make AYP
AYP determination is based on math and reading scores on the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) exams taken each fall as well as the Vermont Alternate Assessment given to students in grades 3 through 8 and 11. Targets to be met increase every three years, and will increase again next year, with a goal of reaching 100 percent proficiency by 2014.
To make AYP, schools must meet requirements with all students, as well as students in different sub-groups based on race, socio-economic status, English language learners and students with disabilities when a school has at least 40 qualifying students in the group.
Statewide, 94 schools, or 31 percent, did not meet AYP this year. Twenty-four of those schools are new to the list, while nine schools made AYP this year for the first time.
SVSU Superintendent Catherine McClure said some of the schools are very close to making AYP and the supervisory union is focusing its attention on students who are close to proficient and need improvement in particular areas to raise them to proficient.
"Thrugh the stimulus money, we’ve started a model where we’ve hired a reading specialist that can do diagnosis, and we’re filling in gaps to really target those students" who are nearly proficient, McClure said.
MAU High School students from low-income families, determined by those who receive free and reduced-cost lunch, and students with disabilities failed to meet AYP requirements in both reading and math.
After a school does not make AYP in two consecutive years it is put in "school improvement status," which requires schools to take specific actions designed to improve student achievement in the areas designated as not making AYP. Schools that doesn’t make AYP in four or more consecutive years enter "corrective action," and the commissioner of education recommends to the state board of education actions specific to that school.
The specific guidelines schools have to follow and additional training faculty receives have been beneficial at the high school, McClure said.
"The high school was proactive and started this training before they were actually required to, on a small basis. So over the last three years they’ve increased what’s called Formative Assessment Training, which validates teachers for frequent assessments of students to change instruction," McClure said.
"We’re really close (in MAU); we’ve made a lot of progress there."
At the MAU Middle School, students with disabilities did not meet AYP in either subject, and those on free or reduced lunch also failed to meet requirements in math.
In the elementary schools, the accumulation of all students at Molly Stark did not meet AYP in math, while students with disabilities did not meet AYP requirements in reading.
The Bennington Elementary students failed to meet AYP in math and low income students did not make AYP in reading.
Pownal students on free or reduced lunch did not meet requirements in math and the total population failed to meet AYP in reading.
Gail Taylor, director of standards and assessment with the DOE, said while not all schools that qualify with 40 or more students in the free or reduced lunch category failed to make AYP, "it’s not an uncommon group for schools to not make AYP on."
Taylor said of the 94 who did not make AYP, two-thirds are identified as students in poverty, and in half of those schools that subgroup was the only one that failed to meet AYP.
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