Wednesday, July 30, 2008 | 2 a.m.
The School District crowed last week when it announced it had met 94 percent of the federal No Child Left Behind law’s requirements for “adequate yearly progress,” or AYP.
But the district posted an even higher score for its appeals to the Nevada Education Department. The district submitted appeals on behalf of 92 schools challenging their AYP failure designations. Of those, 91 were granted AYP status, a 99 percent success rate.
Schools must make AYP both overall and within student subgroups — students from low-income households, students of various ethnicities, special education students. The first year of low scores lands a school on the state’s “watch” list. After two consecutive years, a school is identified as needing improvement.
Schools can appeal for a variety of reasons — a significant change in the student population from one year to the next, for example, or having been required to count scores from an extremely small subgroup of students.
One of the successful appeals was by Innovations International. Launched in 2006, the charter school offers dual-language instruction in grades K-12. Its elementary program was thought to have missed the AYP mark in one category. With the successful appeal, Innovations joins Explore Knowledge Academy as the only two district charter schools to achieve the required progress at all grade levels.
Connie Malin, Innovations’ principal, said she does what she can to help students, and their parents, keep the standardized tests in perspective.
For many of the younger students, it’s their first experience with high-stakes testing.
“They get frustrated or become anxious, they feel the pressure,” Malin said. “They know they need to do a good job.”
Malin urged parents to look at the bigger picture, not just test scores, when deciding whether their children are succeeding academically.
“I’m just as interested in how they perform overall in the classroom,” Malin said. “Can they read better? Are they writing more complex stories? Do they know math facts they didn’t know the year before?”
• • •
Valley High School has been on the state’s “needs improvement” list since 2003, but it looks as if it is on track to lose the dubious distinction next year.
The school, near Eastern and Sahara avenues, made the all-important “adequate yearly progress” this year, and a repeat performance would mean it would no longer be classified as needing to improve.
Valley actually met all of the academic requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law last year as well, but missed the mark for average daily attendance — and attendance is not an appealable issue.
Principal Ron Montoya said he has emphasized literacy and that has been one of the keys to improvement at the school, whose student population is about 60 percent Hispanic.
“The bottom line is, if students don’t read well, they’re not going to pass the test,” Montoya said.
Another factor is at work at Valley, and that’s Montoya. He’s been principal for 10 years, about four years longer than the district typically allows. Because of an ever-growing need for experienced principals, the district promotes its administrators quickly and expects veterans to jump from school to school. But Montoya, who is entering his 34th year in education, said he has no plan to move on.
It’s taken a while to find the right recipe for Valley — the mix of programs and staff to best serve the students. All of the 2008-09 teachers will be back in August, and that kind of faculty stability is critical to a school’s success, Montoya said.
“I have absolutely the best teachers in the world,” Montoya said. “Without high-quality instruction, you can’t expect kids to learn anything.”
• • •
Nevada Virtual Academy, a distance education charter school, will hold an information session this week for Clark County families.
The charter school is beginning its second year of operation. Students are provided with computers and Internet access, and work from home at their own pace. Licensed teachers monitor students’ progress.
The State Board of Education sponsors Nevada Virtual Academy and a second distance education program, Nevada Connections Academy.
The Nevada Virtual Academy information session will be at 7 p.m. Thursday at Valley View Recreation Center, 500 Harris St. in Henderson.
Additional information sessions are scheduled for the week of Aug. 11. For more information, go online to www.k12.com/nvva.
Join the Discussion:
Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.
Full comments policy