LAKEPORT ? Site principals at Lakeport Unified School District (LUSD) reported preparations to ready students for Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) testing at the board”s meeting last week.
The presentations included how teachers are increasingly teaching-to-the-test, including a test-preparation method in which middle school students are given “samples” of one to two test questions each day from released STAR tests.
Teaching-to-the-test pays off for schools in terms of state funding. But last year, when LUSD raised its Annual Yearly Progress test scores into “the green,” meaning the district was no longer labeled as needing improvement under the federal No Child Left Behind act, federal funding didn”t change as a result.
Unlike other schools on the watch list, the school shook off its label without losing federal funding. Some schools receive extra funding for tutors and help that is abruptly taken away once the school meets proficiency targets.
“If a school receives title one (financial assistance to schools with high numbers of poor children) and has a lot of students who come from poverty, they get extra funding. So as far as I know Lakeport hasn”t had any additional funding because of being on a watch list … we really need to applaud them for getting off the watch list,” Chris Thomas said, deputy superintendent of education at the Lake County Office of Education.
In 2005-06 when the school district was still on the watch list, only 20 percent of elementary school Latino students scored proficient or above in English, missing the target of 24.4 percent. That same year, 50 percent of that group of students scored proficient or above in mathematics.
In 2006-07, Latino students reached the mark with 28.3 percent scoring at or above proficiency in English. Math scores for the group dipped slightly, with 42.3 percent scoring proficient in math, but still far exceeding the target of 26.5 percent.
To prepare for tests, such as STAR, the school district receives help from various grants that provide tutors and extra counseling, such as a seventh grade academic counseling grant in place at the middle school.
The program focuses on test scores. Teacher and student “chats” discuss students” scores and make goals to increase the scores during the year. “Most have never seen their scores, they get sent home in the summer,” Terrace sixth through eighth grade Principal Jill Falconer said.
As part of the program, the school is now handing out awards and prizes for students who show any kind of improvement, rather than those who jump scores an entire level.
And benchmarks have been set for each trimester with intervention groups serving approximately 100 students. “It scores them for the teachers, who use the results to drive the curriculum. Each teacher can see each standard the kids are doing well on. The teachers actually really like it,” Falconer said.
As part of the seventh grade academic counseling grant, a program called Words of Wisdom was purchased for the middle school, giving students a daily dose of famous quotes. Also, a bullying hotline number has been posted on campus. Students can dial up with a cell phone and leave a message with a counselor, Falconer said.
Also part of the program, which Falconer said is intended to improve the “well-being” of students, Mix it up Day was established at lunchtime, offering prizes and awards to students who sit with a different group.
Natural High School Principal Cal Morgan introduced his entire staff to the board as part of his presentation. He said the school is “looking at the whole being and a hierarchy of needs” to address test-preparation. “You can”t learn until you take care of your family and social needs, then you”re able and clear to learn.”
He said the school has moved away from a “mutual kind of stand-off approach to education.”
“That”s stopped. The first thing we do is we get the best people for those kids called the worst kids,” Morgan said. He added because the school takes “small steps,” it”s “hard for us in alternative education to meet targets ? we have a long way to go and a baseline that is new.”
Contact Elizabeth Wilson at ewilson@record-bee.com.
