GILROY
– Brownell, ironically, was one of a handful of California
middle schools three years ago eligible to win financial awards
when the state implemented its first round of measuring school
accountability.
GILROY – Brownell, ironically, was one of a handful of California middle schools three years ago eligible to win financial awards when the state implemented its first round of measuring school accountability.
Now, after two consecutive years of descending test scores, it’s one of only 22 middle schools out of 1,187 in California headed for state intervention.
It’s very likely that by early 2003, a state-approved team of educators will visit the junior high to implement corrective actions. The most drastic state intervention would be to remove Brownell Principal Suzanne Damm and possibly other administrators and teachers.
“We think Brownell will at least be subject to a state intervention team,” Gilroy Superintendent Edwin Diaz said late last week. “The corrective actions are not subject to board approval, are not subject to negotiations and they have to be adopted by the board.”
Damm, principal of Brownell since 1996 when it split from South Valley Middle School, said her school is handling the news well given the potential severity of state action and has already put together its own task force to implement changes.
“We knew we needed to make changes, especially in reading,” Damm said. “We’re not putting our heads in the sand.”
Brownell has higher API scores than South Valley, but as test scores at its counterpart have jumped as much as 21 points, Damm’s school has dropped 12 points and three points in its API scores the last two years. State-mandated improvement targets required Brownell scores to go up eight points last year.
Damm sited several factors for Brownell’s unsatisfactory performance.
Over the last few years, the school experienced a 30 percent jump in enrollment, increased teacher turnover and more than one reconfiguration of the grade levels housed there, she said.
Damm said that in prior years only Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program students and the school’s bottom 25 percent were getting grade-level instruction. This year, students in that vast middle get specialized instruction, too.
“There’s intervention now for any student reading two levels below their grade level,” Damm explained. “I’m anticipating growth in next year’s scores for students at all grade levels.”
Recently released standardized test scores show Brownell students underachieving across grade levels and subjects.
On Friday, the state Board of Education deferred taking action against any of the 22 non-improving schools. The board wants to wait until the remainder of the API data, such as statewide and similar-schools rankings, are processed.
API scores are part of the state’s plan to make schools more accountable for student improvement. The scores are based on results from standardized exams taken each spring, such as the Stanford Achievement Test. The state wants all its schools to eventually score at least 800 out of 1000 on the API.
When the state implemented the API system in 1999-2000, 17 of the 22 schools scored well enough to qualify for financial awards. Brownell was one of the 17.
Now the school faces corrective actions which could range from using new materials to implementing a different curriculum. As for the state intervention team’s visit, it would last five days and involve on-site observations and interviews with staff and students, among several other things.
Teams will come from education consultant companies that contract with the district. The state has earmarked $75,000 per district to hire the teams, but consulting costs would likely exceed that amount.
“Each district will have to cover what the state doesn’t,” Wendy Harris of the state’s Schools Improvement Division said.
The state has already designated roughly 30 education consulting firms eligible to perform the school reviews.
