Locals will learn how schools fared on state and federal
assessments
Gilroy – Whether three of Gilroy’s schools must continue wearing the undesirable Program Improvement label will be revealed Thursday when the state releases the Accountability Progress Report.
The report includes the Academic Performance Index, the state assessment and the Adequate Yearly Progress results, the federal measuring stick. It also details which schools are PI designated after failing to meet federal testing standards.
Title I schools, institutions with a significant number of low-income students, are placed in PI for failing to make AYP in the same area or if any considerable minority group fails to meet federal criteria in the same content area in each grade span, for two consecutive years.
Currently, Glen View elementary and Brownell and South Valley middle schools are PI designated. As stipulated by the federal No Child Left Behind act, the school district must allow parents the opportunity to transfer out of a PI school.
For middle school parents that only leaves one choice: Transfer to Ascencion Solorsano Middle School. This school year, about 100 parents made that request but because of space limitations only 40 were granted a transfer.
Schools already in PI that fail to meet AYP once again, will advance to the next level.
And the district is in danger of seeing even more schools enter AYP since only six of its 13 schools met requirements during the 2004-05 school year. Luigi Aprea, El Roble, Rod Kelley and Las Animas elementary, Ascencion Solorsano middle and Mt. Madonna high schools met all criteria.
Regulated by the No Child Left Behind act, the federal government requires each state to develop an accountability system ensuring that each school and district meets AYP. Schools that fail to meet AYP for two consecutive years will fall under a variety of state sanctions, including the PI designation.
By 2014, all students are expected to be 100 percent proficient in math and English, as required by NCLB.
The API report growth report, which also includes the results of minority and low income groups, will specify whether schools have improved. Institutions that fail to meet the set growth requirement won’t make API. Last year, six schools met the criteria.
API scores range from a low of 200 to a high of 1,000, with the overall target for all schools set at 800.
