GILROY
– Superintendent Edwin Diaz will likely use a first quarter
academic audit of Brownell Academy Middle School to request that
the improving school be removed from state sanctions.
By Lori Stuenkel
GILROY – Superintendent Edwin Diaz will likely use a first quarter academic audit of Brownell Academy Middle School to request that the improving school be removed from state sanctions.
Based on both Brownell’s high performance on the state audit and its overall long-term improvement, Diaz said the accountability measure is flawed and unfair.
“I do agree that as we put together the (corrective action) plan … the process was helpful,” Diaz said. “At the same time, I think that the (accountability) process probably ended up with a school that it wasn’t intended to end up with.”
Brownell, which received an Academic Performance Index score of 685 from the state this fall, was placed under sanctions last year after failing to improve standardized test scores two years in a row. As a participant in a state program that intervenes in low-performing schools, it must undergo intervention and monitoring until it improves its API for two consecutive years.
This is the first review of the school since it received a list of 73 corrective actions to complete this year, based on an evaluation conducted in April.
Diaz said he will likely petition the state to grant the school an early release from the intervention program after the 2003 similar schools ranking is released in February. There is already some discussion at the state level about changing the accountability program, he said.
“I figure that, while they’re having these discussions and they’re debating the future of this process, that I’ll throw in my two cents,” Diaz said.
Wendy Harris, assistant superintendent in the California Department of Education, said there is little chance for schools to exit sanctions ahead of schedule.
“The criterion for succeeding is, in the end, growth in the API. The way that the school exits the accountability program is by making significant growth in its schoolwide API for two consecutive years,” Harris said. “That’s what the statute says, that’s what people signed up for …”
Looking at student performance over time, which Diaz says is a more accurate way to measure school performance, Brownell has exceeded overall improvement requirements set by the state for the four years that schools have received an API.
Brownell is 15 points away from qualifying to apply for the prestigious Distinguished Schools award. Based on this year’s 43-point API improvement – which was achieved before the state intervention process began – Brownell could easily gain 15 points next year. Students take standardized tests in the spring that are used to calculate API growth in October.
Also, when Brownell’s student performance is compared to similar schools, it ranks in the 70th percentile.
Diaz would like to see the state monitor performance over a longer period of time.
“Just the nature of improving student performance and the nature of how student performance occurs, you’re going to get some spikes and you’re going to get some valleys,” Diaz said. “It’s hard for us to draw conclusions from any type of trend without three years of data.”
Since many of the corrective actions reflect what is already being implemented districtwide, the sanctions are twice as unnecessary, Diaz said.
“Unfortunately, these types of processes create such enormous stress, and in this case, I think it’s undue stress, on the staff and on the administration and on the whole system,” Diaz said. “I think, as a district, we create enough stress for our teachers and our administrators … in improving student performance.”
Based on the school audit, Brownell has made significant progress on 70 percent of the 73 corrective actions the team recommended in June.
“I see this report as an extremely positive report,” Diaz said. “The only way that Brownell was able to achieve that level of success was by doing a lot of work this summer, as far as pre-planning, and just really, really hitting the road once the school year began.”
Two representatives from WestEd, the state-approved educational research firm hired by the district to carry out the intervention, spent two days auditing the school’s progress in early October. They visited classrooms and interviewed school administrators, department chairs and members of the school’s leadership team, including Diaz and Director of Assessment Esther Corral-Carlson.
The school was evaluated by the audit team in four general areas:
– district and school leadership
– curriculum, instruction and professional development
– classroom and school assessment
– communication.
Each action received a rating on a scale of 1, “little progress,” to 4, “benchmark achieved.”
There are no yearly requirements for obtaining a particular score on a certain number of corrective actions.
“They are designed to be the kinds of things that move the school forward the quickest in meeting its growth targets,” Harris said.
Only 3 percent of actions received the lowest rating, 28 percent were rated as showing “marginal progress,” 46 percent had “significant progress” and 23 percent of corrective actions were completed.
“We believe that we were on the right track, and that this will hopefully help us to just take the next steps,” Principal Suzanne Damm said.
The next step will be revising the school’s process of monitoring the implementation of programs and strategies. Nearly all 2s Brownell received were related to its monitoring procedures.
“We put together what we thought was going to be adequate, and when they came in, they just felt it was not going to give enough information on what they were looking for,” Damm said.
The next corrective actions audit will be conducted in late January.
