Achievement Gap the Focus at Some Schools

Eric Chavez, math tutor at Southwest Junior High School, runs through how to solve an equation Thursday during a tutoring session.
Eric Chavez, math tutor at Southwest Junior High School, runs through how to solve an equation Thursday during a tutoring session.

— The state has identified nearly one-third of Springdale schools as Needs Improvement Focus schools, but the principals of those buildings stress many of their students still are achieving at high levels.

The Needs Improvement Focus label is part of the Arkansas Department of Education’s new accountability system for schools. It identifies those schools with significant achievement gaps between their highest-performing students and students of certain subgroups.

At A Glance

Springdale Schools Classifications

Exemplary

None

Achieving

-George Junior High

-Bayyari Elementary

-Elmdale Elementary

-Hunt Elementary

-Jones Elementary

-Lee Elementary

-Smith Elementary

-Sonora Elementary

-Walker Elementary

-Westwood Elementary

Needs Improvement

-Hellstern Middle

-Kelly Middle

-Harp Elementary

-Shaw Elementary

-Turnbow Elementary

-Tyson Elementary

-Young Elementary

Needs Improvement Focus

-Har-Ber High (Springdale)

-Springdale High

-Parson Hills Elementary

-Southwest Junior High*

-George Elementary*

-Central Junior High*

-Tyson Middle*

-Monitor Elementary

*Indicates school met first-year goal on 2012 assessments. If goals are met in 2013 assessments, they will be removed from focus status.

Needs Improvement Priority

-Alternative Learning Center

Source: Staff Report

Last month, the state revealed 109 schools on the Needs Improvement Focus list. Eight Springdale schools — Springdale High, Har-Ber High, Southwest Junior High, Central Junior High, Tyson Middle, George Elementary, Monitor Elementary and Parson Hills Elementary — were on the list.

“Our high-achieving kids did a great job, which says a lot for our school,” said Brice Wagner, principal of Southwest Junior High. “It created a bigger gap and therefore we were over the line by 2 1/2 percentage points.”

Arkansas created a Targeted Achievement Gap Group to determine focus schools. This group consists of students at risk of failing because of economic disadvantage, English learner status and disabilities.

The achievement gaps between the TAGG and non-TAGG students were calculated for all schools using math and literacy test scores from 2009 to 2011. If the combined scores from those years showed a gap of at least 28.5 percentage points between the lowest- and highest-performing groups of kids, the school was placed in the focus category.

Other categories include Needs Improvement Priority, for the state’s lowest-performing schools; Needs Improvement, for schools that failed to meet their performance, growth or graduation rate objectives; Achieving, for schools that met their objectives; and Exemplary, for schools that demonstrate high performance.

Focus schools can become achieving schools if they meet achievement and graduation targets in two consecutive years. The Springdale schools have various strategies for making that happen.

Har-Ber High School landed on the focus list despite having the highest literacy scores in the district’s history last year, and the highest math scores the year before, said Principal Danny Brackett.

About 40 percent of Har-Ber High’s students are considered TAGG students.

A scholastic audit team of 10 people from the state Department of Education spent a week at Har-Ber last month to determine where the school needs to focus its efforts. All eight of the district’s focus schools have received scholastic audits.

“They’re not applauding us for the things we do very well,” Brackett said of the scholastic audit team. “That’s not what they’re looking for. We’re looking to improve. We want to get better.”

Brackett provided a list of 15 strategies the school has in place to eliminate the school’s achievement gap. One plan includes increasing focus on “argumentation writing,” teaching students to argue points of view by citing evidence-based information.

Brackett said he is still confused by the state’s calculation of Har-Ber’s graduation rate, which factors into the classification of a high school. The confusion stems from the way in which students who transfer out of the school are counted.

“It’s just problematic, but we’re trying to be learners,” Brackett said.

Southwest Junior High is hiring a few additional teachers to lower the teacher-student ratio in its math and literacy classes, Wagner said. Southwest also is providing after-school tutoring and just started Saturday school, which will continue through the end of the school year.

About 11 percent of Southwest’s students are Marshallese, so Wagner wants to hire someone to serve as a liaison between the school and Marshallese families, in order to improve communication with them.

“Being a focus school is helping us put focus on this group of students who need more attention,” Wagner said. “It’s not a label. It says, ‘OK, let’s give you a little more coaching.’ That’s what we’re seeing ... these kids need more coaching in this area.”

He said Southwest is a great school where students who want to learn and who have supportive parents are going to be “super successful,” he said.

Family life and issues at home affect the students, Wagner said. About two-thirds of Springdale students receive free or reduced-price meals, a frequent measurement of poverty in a school district.

At Central Junior High, the challenge is not so much raising the performance of the TAGG students, but elevating the performance of the highest-performing students, said Principal Tamekia Brown.

“I think we will be successful in moving those kids who are struggling,” Brown said. “Our struggle will be in moving the good to great. But we have to show growth with that highest group of students and those struggling ones.”

Students identified as struggling were assessed to determine what their needs were, Brown said. A reading specialist worked closely with some students on literacy issues.

An extra certified teacher was hired on a temporary basis to provide math tutelage at Central. Tutoring was held before school, after school and on Saturdays. A “boot camp” was held in the weeks leading up to the spring’s Benchmark exams to make sure students understood certain math concepts.

George Elementary met its first-year goal on 2012 tests. If it meets its goal in 2013, it will be removed from focus status.

“If we keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to be fine,” said Principal Annette Freeman.

George students take online assessments four times per year in both math and literacy. Teachers do weekly assessments, too, Freeman said.

“We track every single student and provide the intervention for those children to make sure they master those skills,” Freeman said. “It’s measuring every single student. A certain percentage have to meet their growth goal.”

Tyson Middle School also could be removed from focus status if it meets its goal in 2013. The school has various interventions in place for any child identified as a TAGG student.

Tyson Middle made “phenomenal growth” in its 2012 scores, Principal Susan Buchanan said, especially considering the circumstances. The sixth- and seventh-grade school had more than 1,000 students enrolled last year.

“We were busting at the seams,” Buchanan said.

Tyson’s enrollment is down to 680 this year, however, because the district opened a fourth middle school in August.

Springdale’s Alternative Learning Center is one of the 46 schools statewide, and the only one in Northwest Arkansas, identified as Needs Improvement Priority, the state’s most serious category for schools.

The center enrolls about 300 high school students at three sites combined. The center takes students needing extra help to curb behavioral or academic problems. Its main campus is on Meadow Avenue near downtown Springdale.

Paul Griep, the center’s principal, has said numerous measures are being taken to raise the center’s performance. Those measures include investing in technology, working to increase student attendance and concentrating on assessment strategies to determine which students are understanding the subject material.

Upcoming Events