BENTON COUNTY — Six schools in the Rogers School District and two in the Bentonville School District failed in some way to make adequate yearly progress in 2009-10.
All four Rogers middle schools, an elementary school and a high school were placed on a state list of schools in need of improvement. The list was released Monday.
Two schools in Bentonville were placed on alert.
Adequate yearly progress is a requirement of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
The act calls for all students to test proficient or better in math and literacy in the 2013-2014 school year. Schools have to make adequate progress each year, as laid out by a state plan, toward reaching that goal.
The plan requires annual improvements in standardized math and literacy test scores for the general student population and for so-called subpopulations, such as students with disabilities or students from low-income families.
Schools that do not make adequate yearly progress two years in a row are placed on a school improvement list and assigned a status. They are subject to increasingly stronger sanctions for each year they are in school improvement.
A school is placed on alert status the first year it fails to meet standards.
Rogers School District
District officials said the schools will adjust teaching strategies and curriculum to try to get off the list.
Greer Lingle and Oakdale middle schools are in year one of targeted school improvement in literacy and math for students with disabilities.
James Goodwin, principal at Oakdale, said he was disappointed with the results. He said there were some problems with how the school coded the tests and other issues with administration of the tests.
“We felt like we knew everything about it,” Goodwin said. “Our kids are probably coming along just fine, but our administrators will be learning more.”
Natasha Ball is the mother of an eighth-grader in special education at Oakdale. She said it seemed unfair that special-education students have to take the same tests as other students.
“I know she has a hard time with that,” Ball said. “It kills her self-confidence.”
Ball said she thinks, apart from the standardized testing, the school does a good job teaching her daughter and other students with disabilities.
Birch Kirksey Middle School is in year five of targeted school improvement after it failed to make adequate progress in math for students with disabilities.
Roger Hill, principal of Kirksey, said the school has tried different approaches to improving scores for students with disabilities.
For example, middle schools in the district have implemented co-teaching, in which students with disabilities are taught in a regular classroom, by both a regular teacher and a special education teacher.
Hill said it is particularly difficult to make adequate progress in the test scores of students with disabilities. Most of the students are at least two grade levels behind, but are given the same tests as other students, he said.
Elmwood Middle School is also in year five of targeted school improvement. It failed to make adequate yearly progress in math and literacy for students with disabilities.
Phil Eickstaedt, the district’s director of secondary curriculum and instruction, said schools across the country struggle to increase the scores of special-education students.
Overall, he said administrators are happy with the schools’ performance.
“We have good schools, but a few of them have issues with very specific groups,” he said.
Rogers High School is also on the list for failing to make adequate progress in literacy scores.
Principal Robert Moore said the school has focused on math this year after failing to make adequate math progress in the 2008-2009 school year, and succeeded in boosting its math scores.
Now it’s time to do the same with literacy he said.
Rogers Heritage High School had similar results, but does not have enough years of data to be placed on the list.
Elza R. Tucker Elementary School, which was in year one of school improvement, made adequate yearly progress. It takes two years to get off the list.
Bentonville School District
Spring Hill Elementary School and Washington Junior High School were placed on alert status after not meeting benchmarks for students with disabilities.
The standardized test showed students at Spring Hill missed benchmarks in literacy, while students at Washington fell short in literacy and math categories.
“The AYP goes up every year,” Washington Junior High Principal Kathy Murry said. “We are going to redouble our efforts and do everything we can. We have strong teachers and we have great kids. I assume we will be off alert next year.”
AYP stands for annual yearly progress.
The school already uses small groups and finds special strategies to help students with disabilities do better on the tests, Murry said.
“I think Washington is a great school and I am sure they will do whatever they can to help students make it,” said Carolyn Sneed, a parent of a student at the school. “I think it is unfortunate that there is so much stress placed on one test when there are so many great things that go on in the school district.”
The district appealed results for three others schools after a preliminary release of results in August. All three appeals were accepted by the state.
“The greatest victory of all was Lincoln Junior High School,” said Karen Morton, the district’s assessment and data management director. “They were targeted for Improvement Year II.”
Lincoln was on the needs improvement list for students with disabilities in literacy last year.
“We are really, really, very pleased that three of our schools could come off of the list,” Superintendent Gary Compton said. “There was a lot of hard work by staff members to make that happen, yet we still have some work to do in a few other areas.”
Compton said there are good lists to be on and lists you don’t want to be on.
“This is one we are trying to stay off of,” Compton said.
Overall Outlook
Gary Ritter, director of education policy at the University of Arkansas, said parents, school leaders and taxpayers should pay attention to the report, but not the end results.
“It is called an adequate yearly progress but it does not review progress,” Ritter said. “It is measuring attainment not progress.”
A school's growth should be more important than if they meet a benchmark, Ritter said.
If the benchmark for this year is 80 percent proficiency and a school that was 30 percent proficient last year advances to 79 percent proficiency, it will not have met the standard, Ritter said.
One thing good about the report is how it looks at subgroups, Ritter said.
“We really should care about how well disadvantaged students are doing," Ritter said. "We shouldn't be able to mask their scores.”
In the first year of school improvement, the school has to allow students to transfer to other schools. In later years, the state may require changes to personnel or curriculum.
If the school does not make adequate yearly progress after the fifth year of school improvement, the state takes more control of the school and appoints a school improvement director, according to the Arkansas Department of Education.
Siloam Springs Schools
Every school in the Siloam Springs District is on the list.
Northside and Allen elementary schools received targeted improvement year three corrective action status, but do not facilitate students old enough to take the test. The two schools automatically receive the status that Southside Elementary School attained because students will move up into that school, said Diana Gray, director of accountability and assessment for the district.
Southside Elementary needs improvement in literacy in both the economic disadvantaged and student with disabilities subpopulations.
Siloam Springs Middle School is in year six of state direction. It received a year five status last year. It failed to meet literacy standards in economic disadvantaged, Hispanic and student with disabilities subgroups.
Siloam Springs High School is in year one of whole school improvement achieving. The district was at needs improvement one status last year, but achieved this year. If it achieves next year it will come off the list.
The district has made curriculum changes and hired a consultant firm to teach teachers procedures in working with subpopulation groups, said Gray.
“We are addressing these issues through instructional facilitator,” Gray said. “They are also getting more and more computer programs that help individualize teaching for kids. We see pockets of good news all over and it is hard to complain when we are moving in the right direction.”
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AT A GLANCE
School Status
Note: A school that does not make adequate progress for one year is placed on alert. After two years, it is placed in school improvement.
It takes two years of satisfactory scores for a school to get out of school improvement. Schools that were in improvement and have on year of satisfactory scores are designated as “achieving.”
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Benton County School of The Arts
Benton County School of The Arts
Status: Alert
Areas for improvement: Economically disadvantaged math
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Bentonville School District
Washington Junior High School
Status: Alert
Areas for improvement: Students with disabilities literacy; students with disabilities math
Spring Hill Middle School
Status: Alert
Areas for improvement: Limited English proficiency literacy; students with disabilities literacy; students with disabilities math
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Decatur School District
Decatur Northside Elementary
Status: Whole school improvement, year two
Areas for improvement: Caucasian literacy, economically disadvantaged math
Decatur Middle School
Status: Alert
Areas for improvement: Combined population literacy; Caucasian literacy; economically disadvantaged literacy; economically disadvantaged math
Decatur High School
Status: Alert
Areas for improvement: Combined population literacy; Hispanic math; Caucasian literacy; Caucasian math; economically disadvantaged literacy; limited English proficiency math
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Gentry School District
Gentry Primary School
Status: Alert
Areas for improvement: Combined population literacy; economically disadvantaged literacy; limited English proficiency literacy; limited English proficiency math; students with disabilities literacy; students with disabilities math
Gentry Intermediate School
Status: Alert
Areas for improvement: Combined population literacy; economically disadvantaged literacy; limited English proficiency literacy; limited English proficiency math; students with disabilities literacy; students with disabilities math
Gentry High School
Status: Alert
Areas for improvement: Combined population literacy; economically disadvantaged literacy
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Gravette School District
Gravette Upper Elementary
Status: Targeted improvement, year one
Areas for improvement: Economically disadvantaged literacy; students with disabilities, literacy; students with disabilities, math
Glenn Duffy Elementary School
Status: Targeted improvement, year one
Areas for improvement: Economically disadvantaged literacy; students with disabilities, literacy; students with disabilities, math
Gravette Middle School
Status: Targeted improvement, achieving, year one
Areas for improvement: N/A
Gravette High School
Status: Alert
Areas for improvement: Economically disadvantaged literacy
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Pea Ridge
Pea Ridge Primary School
Status: Alert
Areas for improvement: Economically disadvantaged literacy; students with disabilities literacy; students with disabilities math
Pea Ridge Intermediate School
Status: Alert
Areas for improvement: Economically disadvantaged literacy; students with disabilities literacy; students with disabilities math
Rogers School District
Elza R. Tucker Elementary School
Status: Targeted improvement, achieving, year one
Areas for improvement: N/A
Lowell Elementary School
Status: Alert
Areas for improvement: Hispanic literacy; economically disadvantaged literacy; limited English proficiency literacy
Birch Kirksey Middle School
Status: Targeted intensive improvement, year five
Areas for improvement: Students with disabilities, literacy
Elmwood Middle School
Status: Targeted intensive improvement, year five
Areas for improvement: Students with disabilities, math; students with disabilities, literacy
Greer Lingle Middle School
Status: Targeted improvement, year one
Areas for improvement: Students with disabilities, math; students with disabilities, literacy
Oakdale Middle School
Status: Targeted improvement, year one
Areas for improvement: Students with disabilities, math; students with disabilities, literacy
Rogers Heritage High School
Status: Alert
Areas for improvement: Combined population literacy; Hispanic literacy; economically disadvantaged literacy
Rogers High School
Status: Whole school improvement, year one
Areas for improvement: Combined population, literacy; Hispanic literacy; economically disadvantaged literacy
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Siloam Springs School District
Northside Elementary School
Status: Targeted improvement, year three, corrective action
Areas for improvement: Economically disadvantaged literacy; students with disabilities math
Southside Elementary School
Status: Targeted improvement year three, corrective action
Areas for improvement: Economically disadvantaged literacy; students with disabilities math
Allen Elementary School
Status: Targeted improvement year three, corrective action
Areas for improvement: Economically disadvantaged literacy; students with disabilities math
Siloam Springs Middle School
Status: State directed, year six
Areas for improvement: Hispanic literacy; economically disadvantaged literacy; students with disabilities literacy
Siloam Springs High School
Status: Whole school improvement, achieving, year one
Areas for improvement: N/A
Source: Arkansas Department Of Education