Gilroy High School came up three students short of receiving a
grade on a key state test, and administrators hope revised
enrollment numbers will help them qualify for a score.
Gilroy High School came up three students short of receiving a grade on a key state test, and administrators hope revised enrollment numbers will help them qualify for a score.
So focused on securing a high mark on the state standardized life science test and high participation on tests in other subjects, GHS created a scheduling conflict that caused too few students to take the life science exam. According to district figures, 512 of 605 sophomores took the life science exam last spring, resulting in a 84.63 percent participation rate. The state requires 85 percent of students to take all relevant spring-administered tests for a school to obtain a score on the Academic Performance Index, the state’s 200- to 1,000-point ranking system. GHS missed the mandated participation rate by 0.37 percent, or a little less than three students.
By conducting the life science exam during the same week as make-up exams for English and math, the school ran into a “scheduling error,” said Gilroy Unified School District Superintendent Deborah Flores.
“Strategically, we thought that if we administered the (life science) test later, it would be better for test results,” Flores said. “It would have given teachers more time to cover the subject matter in class.”
But the later test window for the science exam clashed with make-up exams.
“This was an administrative issue,” Flores said. “Everyone feels terrible about it. This isn’t about students not taking the test because they didn’t want to.”
Gilroy High administrators are in charge of scheduling the tests, and Flores said she is “holding the whole team accountable.”
Three other spring-administered tests – math, social studies and language arts – go into the high school’s Academic Performance Index score. Nearly 98 percent of eligible students took the language arts exam, nearly 99 percent of eligible students took the math exam, and more than 96 percent of eligible students participated in the U.S. history exam, according to district figures.
“We were aiming to get 100 percent participation,” Flores said. “We came very close in the other three areas. Clearly the school was committed to a high participation rate.”
At a school where the average daily attendance rate hovers around 94 percent, the participation rates on the math, language arts and history exams indicate the school “obviously did a great job with make-ups,” Flores said.
“Unfortunately, somehow that caused us to fail to note that some students hadn’t taken life sciences,” she said. “That is our error that definitely will be corrected.”
That Gilroy High missed its participation mark by only three students offers a “glimmer of hope,” Director of Assessment Jim Pisano said. The state gives districts a small window of time next month to make data corrections. Until the close of that period, the district will “look closely at its 10th grade enrollment” as three fewer 10th grade students would mean that Gilroy High would have had a 85 percent participation rate, and would therefore qualify for a score.
“We need to … identify any students who were included in the 605 who should not have been (for example students who moved or otherwise left GHS),” Pisano wrote in an e-mail. “If possible, this would lower the denominator in the equation and increase the participation rate.”
With more than 20 years in public education, Flores had never seen a school miss its API score before, she said. So far, the district hasn’t been able to determine any dire consequences for GHS. However, it could pose problems for the school in the future if the school does not post sufficient test scores next year.
If GHS had fulfilled the participation requirements, the district estimated the high school would have added five points to last year’s score of 723. The lack of an API score will not affect GHS’s status as a California Distinguished School – an honor bestowed upon schools that show significant progress on API, among other achievements – Flores said. If the glitch occurred last year, however, the lack of an API score would have kept GHS from becoming a Distinguished School.
Though the district is still hopeful it may be able to resolve the issue, Flores said the district will take extra care to make sure it hits the mandated participation next year.
“This will be addressed next year,” she said. “I can promise you that.”
