Most area schools make Adequate Yearly Progress

By Annie McCallum

Published: August 27, 2008

A majority of Lynchburg-area schools met the increasing standards set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, according to figures released by the Virginia Department of Education on Wednesday.

About 63 percent of public schools in Lynchburg and the counties of Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford, Campbell and Nelson made what is known as Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP.

Statewide, 74 percent of Virginia’s public schools met the standards, up from last year’s 72 percent.

Local education officials said the rigor of the toughening standards made it difficult to achieve the required gains.

“The fact that it is a moving target makes it even more difficult,” said Bobbi Johnson, Bedford County Schools’ assistant superintendent. “In many cases we’re doing the right thing and we’ve shown improvement, but the target goes up.”

Both divisions and individual schools are labeled as meeting or not meeting AYP based on the achievement of 29 benchmarks.

Schools receiving Title I funds must meet all benchmarks, which get tougher each year.

“The high-jump bar went up,” said John Erb, Campbell County Schools assistant superintendent for instruction, adding that those schools in Campbell County missing the mark did so by only a few of the benchmarks.

Campbell County and Appomattox County were the only two local school systems where the division made AYP. Statewide, 59 percent of divisions did not make AYP, compared with last year’s 56

percent.

Here is a division-by-division breakdown of results.

- Lynchburg City Schools announced its expected AYP results during a recent school board meeting. The division itself, for the first time, did not make AYP, and seven of its 16 schools missed the mark.

Those schools are E.C. Glass High School; Paul Laurence Dunbar, Linkhorne and Sandusky middle schools; and Perrymont, T.C. Miller and R.S. Payne elementary schools.

Stephen Smith, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, confirmed the division’s anticipated findings did not change Wednesday.

- Bedford County Schools had six of 20 schools not make AYP: Bedford Primary and Bedford Elementary (which are counted as one school), Bedford Middle, Staunton River Middle, Montvale Elementary, Stewartsville Elementary and Thaxton Elementary.

Because it’s the second consecutive year Bedford Primary and Bedford Elementary did not make the mark, they were required to offer school choice this year. Johnson said no one has opted for school choice, but it was an opportunity to inform parents about NCLB.

“In the long run parents realized it’s not a true reflection of quality of schools,” Johnson said. “But it is a difficult thing to help people understand.”

Johnson said all six schools that did not make AYP would be assigned a focus team to look at data and see how administration can support them.

“There’s nothing broken in these schools, but we do have a moving target and that’s not going to wait for us,” she said.

- Campbell County Schools had seven of its 14 schools miss the mark. Even though half of the county’s schools did not make AYP, the division did.

“The difference is you have smaller pools of student scores that comprise a school’s scores, but when you combine it all together, one score can’t impact a large pool like a smaller school,” Erb said.

The schools that did not make AYP are Altavista Elementary, Altavista Combined, Brookville Middle, Concord Elementary, Rustburg Middle, William Campbell High and Yellow Branch Elementary.

“All the schools that didn’t make it, it involves either disadvantaged students or students with disabilities or black students or combination of those three,” Erb said.

The county will continue to use pacing guides and follow curriculum framework, Erb said, as a way to keep up with increasing standards.

- Amherst County Schools had two of its 10 schools not make AYP — Amherst and Monelison middle schools.

- Appomattox County Schools had only one school, Appomattox Middle School, that didn’t meet the standards.

Last year Appomattox was one of 23 school divisions to not only make AYP, but also have all of its schools make the mark as well.

Superintendent Aldridge Boone said division officials would examine what affected AYP status at the middle school and perhaps put some sort of remediation in place.

“What we usually do, we have a pretty intense session where we look at data,” he said. “It’s not enough to make broad statements, we want to key in on specific groups.”

- Nelson County Schools had two of its four schools not meet the standards — Nelson Middle and Tye River Elemen-tary. Superintendent Roger Collins said it is the first time the division did not make AYP.

“We think this data just shows one piece of the academic puzzle,” Collins said.

He cited math as a problem area, which the division is already working to fix.

“We have a math plan currently in place that is supported by instructional teams, so we’re trying to drill down to the basic concepts of math and allow students to apply those concepts in real-world situations,” Collins said.

Additionally, there is continued professional development in math and a revised middle school schedule to enable more math instruction.

What is No Child Left Behind?

No Child Left Behind, or NCLB, is a piece of federal legislation that became law in 2002. It is aimed at increasing the accountability in public schools and school divisions across the country. Each year public school divisions and schools receiving Title I funds must make Adequate Yearly Progress.

What is Adequate Yearly Progress?

Adequate Yearly Progress or AYP is a measure of achievement under NCLB. Each year schools and school divisions must meet 29 benchmarks to make AYP. Many have called the achievement measure a “moving target” because pass rates increase by 4 percentage points each year with the goal of 100 percent proficiency by 2014.

Schools that do not make AYP for two consecutive years face sanctions, which can include allowing students to attend another school or offering supplemental services such as tutoring.

What about state accreditation?

AYP is not the same as state accreditation, even though AYP is calculated using Standards of Learning testing data. State accreditation is based on testing students in various subjects with specific pass rates in each subject. Accreditation results are expected in September.