USD 428 is preparing a brochure covering the district’s successes in last spring’s state assessment tests. The flyer will be distributed to district patrons this fall. It will include state targets as well as local scores. For more information, call the district office at 620-793-1500.
USD 428 school demographics (2009-2010 figures for ethnicity/socio-econ status, and 2010-2011 for enrollment):
Entire district
• Total enrollment –
• Ethnicity – 68 percent white, 29 percent Hispanic, 1 percent black and 4 percent other
• Socio-economic status – 39 percent no lunch support and 61 percent free-and-reduced
Eisenhower Elementary School
• Total enrollment –
• Ethnicity – 81 percent white, 13 percent Hispanic, 1 percent black and 5 percent other
• Socio-economic status – 39 percent no lunch support and 61 percent free-and-reduced
Jefferson Elementary School
• Total enrollment –
• Ethnicity – 83 percent white, 13 percent Hispanic, 1 percent black and 3 percent other
• Socio-economic status – 61 percent no lunch support and 39 percent free-and-reduced
Lincoln Elementary School
• Total enrollment –
• Ethnicity – 82 percent white, 12 percent Hispanic, 2 percent black and 4 percent other
• Socio-economic status – 48 percent no lunch support and 52 percent free-and-reduced
Park Elementary School
• Total enrollment –
• Ethnicity – 58 percent white, 38 percent Hispanic, 1 percent black and 3 percent other
• Socio-economic status – 17 percent no lunch support and 83 percent free-and-reduced
Riley Elementary School
• Total enrollment –
• Ethnicity – 10 percent white, 89 percent Hispanic, 1 percent black and 0 percent other
• Socio-economic status – 3 percent no lunch support and 97 percent free-and-reduced
Great Bend Middle School
• Total enrollment –
• Ethnicity – 68 percent white, 28 percent Hispanic, 1 percent black and 3 percent other
• Socio-economic status – 47 percent no lunch support and 53 percent free-and-reduced
Great Bend High School
• Total enrollment –
• Ethnicity – 69 percent white, 25 percent Hispanic, 2 percent black and 4 percent other
• Socio-economic status – 51 percent no lunch support and 49 percent free-and-reduced
For the most part, Unified School District 428 Curriculum Director Ruth Heinrichs’ report on the school system’s 2011 State Assessment Test results Monday night brought good news.
The district as a whole met its student proficiency goals in reading and math, after missing the mark last year, she told School Board members meeting at the District Education Center. But, Park Elementary missed in reading and one of the sub groups at the high school missed in math.
“I think the district did very well and I think the schools as a whole did very well,” Heinrichs said. This is a tribute to the students, teachers and parents. Since NCLB was implemented in 2006, Great Bend schools have performed well.
Assessment success is measured by whether or not a school or district makes adequate yearly progress (AYP), which is based on a percentage set by the 11-year-old federal No Child Left Behind act. The percentage increases each year until the target is 100 percent proficiency in reading and math by 2014.
In reading, 90.2 percent of the USD 428 students hit the standard of 86 percent or surpassed it. In math, it was 89.3 percent compared to the 82.36 percent target.
District-wide, 1,484 students took the reading test in 2011 and 1,481 took the math. The numbers include third through eighth grade and once in high school. High school students take the tests after they’ve had the opportunity to cover the assessed material.
When the Kansas Department of Education looks at the district level, it looks at more than just the district-wide and school levels. Districts are also divided up by sub-groups, a body of students of 30 or more that fall into a special category. There are nine of these: Free and Reduced Lunch, Students with Disabilities, English Language Learners, Blacks, Hispanics, Whites, Asian/Pacific Islanders, American Indians, and Multi-ethnic/Undeclared. Not all schools have all groups.
The state also breaks down AYP into math and reading proficiency. These are the upwardly moving targets set by NCLB. Science and social studies are also tested, but don’t count towards AYP.
Heinrichs said the figures varied from school to school and from subgroup to subgroup. This is how the district made it, while Park struggled in reading and the students on free-reduced lunches at the high school missed the mark.
There are ways to squeak by with a sub-target AYP through what are known as “confidence interval” and “safe harbor.” In a nutshell, through a complex formula, a district/school/group can pass within the interval if it is within a certain percentage of the target. In the safe harbor, a group that missed the goal the previous year has to show at least a 10 percent improvement.
“We’ve done great things in bringing our kids to proficiency,” Superintendent Tom Vernon said. Despite the increasing difficulty to meet the higher goals, these accomplishments should not be forgotten.
Vernon doesn’t see any changes in the works for NCLB. The United States Department of Education may be more open to accepting waivers, or exceptions for states, but that will likely be it.
But, there was talk in Washington Monday that the Obama administration would authorize Education Secretary Arne Duncan to grant waivers because Congress had failed to act on a comprehensive overhaul of the law.
At the state level, slightly more Kansas schools are meeting the performance targets, the Kansas Department of Education reports.
The education department released the latest report Tuesday showing how schools are faring as they seek to have 100 percent of students do well on state tests by 2014. The state says 84 percent of its 1,367 public schools met the standards in the 2010-11 school year, compared to 81 percent in the previous year.
There are some states (Tennessee and North Carolina among them) that are experimenting with a “growth model” in which proficenency is pegged to an individual student’s improvement. “They’ve had some success,” Heinrichs said.
With the new school year starting next week and another round of testing on the horizon, meeting the goal outright or through an exception (and getting to 100 percent) is a daunting task. “As we get almost in to the 90s (percent rage), it’s going to get difficult,” Heinrichs said. “It’s going to be a tough job for us.”
However, teachers and administrators are constantly pouring over scores and results. “If anything good has come out of No Child Left Behind, it is that we look at each child more as an individual.”
Federal No Child Left Behind guidelines require all schools, to hit the targets. After a school misses for two consecutive years, it is identified as needing improvement and must inform parents so they can make decisions regarding their children’s school. A school must make AYP two years in a row to be removed from the list.
The feds can also withhold funding to failing schools or intervene in their administration.
The number of Kansas schools facing sanctions was up nine in the latest year, to 46, and the number of districts facing sanctions jumped by 10 to 34.
