Eleven of 12 district schools failed to meet federal and state
testing goals this past year and the district fell further behind
state averages, state data show.
Gilroy – Eleven of 12 district schools failed to meet federal and state testing goals this past year and the district fell further behind state averages, state data show.
Those 11 Gilroy Unified School District schools failed to make sufficient academic growth last year as a school or in a particular subgroup of students, according to data released Friday from the California Department of Education. Overall district performance declined even as the statewide performance inched upward, with district schools having particular trouble meeting the needs of English learners.
“There’s some good news and some not-so-good news,” Superintendent Deborah Flores.
Only Las Animas Elementary School met both federal and state testing requirements. The school gained 27 points on the state’s academic performance index – which measures the average score of students in math and English on the May state-administered California Standards Test. The growth was the largest in the district and eclipsed a five-point state target. The school also met the federal requirement – also known as annual yearly progress – that 24 percent of students be proficient in math and English language arts.
“I am very proud of the teachers in our school,” said Las Animas principal Silvia Reyes, who pointed out that the school grew 123 points in four years with a diverse student population high in English learners. “That speaks very highly about what teachers are doing to improve and meet the needs of students who are walking through our doors.”
Of the 12 district schools, only 8 percent met testing targets. This lags behind the state, where 45 percent of schools met targets. The district score of 731 on the state index also lags behind the state average of 751, despite district growth outpacing state growth – 48 points to 37 points – during the past four years. The district’s score fell one point from last year while the state average grew six points.
“I think that our schools have been working really hard and now it’s time to fine tune what they’re working on,” assistant superintendent of educational services Basha Millhollen said.
Of the 11 district schools that failed to meet testing criteria, five did not meet either state or federal criteria, four did not meet state criteria, and two did not meet federal criteria. Of the seven schools that did not meet federal criteria, all of them met overall student proficiency requirements for math and English but none of them met English learners proficiency in both categories.
“What that tells us is we need to put focus on English language learners,” trustee Francisco Dominguez said. “We need to decide what are the strategies that we need to do to address the issues related to English language learners so that it doesn’t affect the overall performance of the school site.”
As a consequence for not meeting federal criteria at least two years in a row, the U.S. Department of Education placed five schools in program improvement. One of those schools, South Valley Middle School – which had the district’s second highest state growth of 26 points and a two-year state growth of 50 points – went into year four program improvement and could suffer sanctions that include replacing the entire staff, changing the administration or submitting to state takeover.
Trustees and district staff do not have a distinct plan, but said replacing staff was infeasible given nationwide teacher shortages and that current administrators have effected large changes since arriving a few years ago.
“I think it’s a hard-working staff,” trustee Pat Midtgaard said. “We all saw the concerted effort that went on at South Valley.”
While test results reflected a lack of growth at two schools, Luigi Aprea Elementary School and Ascencion Solorsano Middle School, district staff were still pleased with their performance. Luigi Aprea, while dropping 14 points from last year, still exceeded the state’s index goal of 800 by scoring an 846. Similarly, Solorsano gained only one point, but that point brought them to 791, within striking distance of the state’s goal. Both schools met federal proficiency requirements.
The district plans to look at schools that had significant gains on the state index and in federal proficencies to discover strategies that create growth, Flores said. The district can then implement similar programs at lower-scoring schools. This distribution of effective strategies is especially important as next year the government’s criteria will get tougher, with the percentage of students that must be proficient in math and English rising from 24 to 35 percent.
“I think our chances are at least 50 percent that we can do it,” Flores said. “What we’re going to need to do is dramatic and different in some cases.”
The district, thanks to the computing staff crunching test results released in early August, anticipated the results released Friday. District staff have shared predictions with principals and staff and already begun working to fix problems and further successes, Millhollen said.
“We really have an understanding of where we’re going,” she said. “The plans have already been put into place.”
