“The significant difference is that we’re six less schools that didn’t make AYP,” said Shawn Dusek, KPBSD’s director of secondary education curriculum/ assessment.
In 2005, four of the sites — Connections, Nanwalek, Razdolna and Susan B. English in Seldovia — impacted southern peninsula students. This year, that number is down to two, Homer Flex School and Connections.
Flex was on the list for two years, moved off it last year, but did not meet AYP for 2006, placing it back on the list for the third year. The stumbling block is the school’s graduation rate.
“The issue they have is they’re taking kids that are already behind credit-wise and working hard to get them back to where they need to be and to pass the high school qualifying exam, so it’s a difficult situation,” Dusek said. “They’re doing a good job with it, but have to figure out more plans to get these kids to graduate on time.”
This is the fourth year Connections, the district’s home school program, has not met AYP requirements.
“Their big issue is participation,” Dusek said. “With a home school program, you may have families out of state when testing occurs, so that’s an issue that we’re trying to get people to commit to take the tests.”
NCLB passed Congress in 2002, and requires schools meet AYP targets with specific groups of students, including students with limited English proficiency, students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students, Caucasians, Alaska Natives, American Indians, African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics. Percentages are specified for proficiency in the areas of language arts and math. Participation, as well as attendance and graduation rates play key roles. A total of 32 targets must be reached in order for a school to make AYP.
Four years of collected data indicate the district is doing “pretty well” in language arts and reading, according to Dusek. Math is staying level districtwide, and the district is looking at what is needed to do better.
A 20 percent improvement has been made by students with limited English proficiency.
“They’re making great strides,” Dusek said. “Kachemak Selo made AYP for the second year in a row. Voznesenka and Razdolna did well again. We’re really proud of what’s happening there.”
With NCLB up for reauthorization in 2007, program changes may be on the horizon.
“On the topic of high school reform, you’ll hear three words from the federal government: rigor, relevance and relationship,” Dusek said. “We want to make sure curriculum is rigorous, relevant to the needs of students’ future and that we’re building strong relationships with these students so they’ll want to be in school. That’s something our district’s been focused on for several years, so I feel we have a leg up in that regard.”
McKibben Jackinsky can be reached at mckibben.jackinsky@homernews.com.
We encourage you to add your comments. To prevent spam, comments with links are manually approved during the normal business day. Please be respectful of others with your comments, bear in mind anyone in the community may be reading your comments.
