Measuring success
Idaho schools face challenges, triumphs with AYP goals

BY JESSICA KELLER
ARGUS OBSERVER
Thursday, August 21, 2008 2:57 PM PDT

New Plymouth High School science teacher Gary Jones �” who has taught chemistry, biology and physics at NPHS for 28 years �” prepares an acid solution after the first day of school. The New Plymouth School District succeeded in meeting its Adequate Yearly Progress goals for the 2007-2008 school year.

NEW PLYMOUTH �”� The New Plymouth School District met its Adequate Yearly Progress goals for the 2007-2008 school year while two other districts in Payette County came up short in the national academic achievement agenda.

Neither Fruitland or Payette school districts achieved state-mandated Adequate Yearly Progress goals under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The superintendents of both Fruitland and Payette school districts said they generally feel positive about the gains made in their districts for the past school year in spite of their overall scores.

In New Plymouth, all three schools and the district overall, met Idaho’s requirements for English, language arts proficiency and mathematics proficiency for AYP, which is the “minimum level of improvement that Idaho school districts and schools must achieve each year as determined under the federal No Child Left Behind Act and Idaho State Board of Education rules,” according to the state board’s Web site.

The percentage requirements increase every two years, and in the past school year, Idaho schools had to achieve 78 percent proficiency in English and language arts and 70 percent in math overall and in their subgroups to meet AYP goals.

There are 41 target areas or aggregates �” including race/ethnic groups, economically disadvantaged, limited English proficient students, etc. A school/district must have 34 students in each subgroup to have those test scores count for AYP, so some school districts and/or schools may have to pass in more target areas than others, depending on the makeup of the students.

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New Plymouth Superintendent Ryan Kirby said each school in the district met AYP in all the different subgroups or aggregates it qualifies in, which is pretty much a trend at New Plymouth schools. The only year it has not met, he said was in 2006-2007, when the state implemented a new version of the Idaho Standards Achievement Tests that spring.

“We weren’t ready for it,” he said.

This year, however, the district was prepared, and the overall strategy the school district employs �” ongoing assessment and data crunching among teachers and administrators �” doesn’t change, nor has the students’ success, Kirby said.

“That’s what we do for a living over here,” Kirby said. “We have tremendous communication between departments, and our special ed., and ESL teachers work with classroom teachers and administrator closely.”

He said, between them, the teachers and administrators study test data to determine which subgroups and categories students are low in and get additional help for those students.

“And then we test them again, maybe a month later,” Kirby said. “But we data crunch in all three buildings constantly.”

In addition, he said, teachers and administrators are always thinking of new strategies to use when teaching students and implementing them.

“And we have good working relationships in all the buildings and all the departments, so when we decide to make an adjustment we do it quickly,” he said.

The AYP results were somewhat different in Payette and Fruitland school districts, based on preliminary results released by the state. The final results for schools and school districts will be released to the public Sept. 1.

Fruitland, for example failed to meet AYP marks among its student with disabilities for reading and limited English proficient students in reading.

Among the schools, Fruitland High School failed to meet in economically disadvantaged reading proficiency. Preliminary results indicate Fruitland Elementary failed to meet in the language arts proficiency, however, that was appealed by the school because it failed by less than a percentage point and at least one student was included who should not have been because he enrolled at the school after the eighth week of school �” the cutoff for students to count for AYP �” Superintendent Alan Felgenhauer said.

“So that’s pretty darn good for us as far as everybody making it or coming pretty darn close,” he said.

While the school district typically gets caught in students with disabilities, and this year LEP, those are two subgroups difficult to meet because once a student with disabilities reaches proficiency he or she is moved out of the category and does not count in that subgroup. For LEP students, they can only be in the program for seven years and then they can’t be counted. If they pass, however, their scores can only count in the LEP subgroup for two spring testing periods.

“Even though we did not make it in LEP for AYP, we went up almost 25 percent in proficiency, so I’m really pleased with that,” Felgenhauer said.

Payette Superintendent Pauline King said, while she could be happier because the district and the schools did not pass in various categories, she is pleased with the progress the district has made overall.

She said the district overall did not meet in three aggregate areas �” Hispanic student math proficiency, Limited English proficiency and students with disabilities math proficiency.

That, however, is a vast improvement from the previous school year when the district did not meet in 12 aggregate groups.

“I’m just so proud of the progress that Payette School District has made,” King said.