Published: March 26, 2008 12:56 pm            

NA-FC schools miss benchmarks; officials hope curriculum mapping, full-day kindergarten will show progress

The New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. — and 11 individual schools — failed to make progress required under the No Child Left Behind Act, according to the 2007 Adequate Yearly Progress scores released Tuesday.

The scores show whether or not Adequate Yearly Progress, of AYP, was made overall and in subgroups that have 30 or more students, such as low-income and special-education groups.

If a certain percentage of students don’t show enough progress, the school fails.

Nearly half of the state’s schools failed to show improvement, according to the Indiana Department of Education. Still, the state’s schools improved overall — with 54 percent passing in 2007 compared to 52 percent in 2006. At the district level, 84 percent of school corporations made AYP in 2007 compared to 79 percent the previous year.

AYP requires schools that fail to make changes. If the schools don’t achieve AYP, the state has the power to abolish or restructure the school corporation along with other actions.

“It’s about not leaving any children behind,” said Teresa Perkins, assistant to the superintendent for curriculum and instruction at NA-FC. “It makes no difference if it’s one child or 50 children. You can’t focus on that. You have to focus on what you are going to do about it.”

NA-FC schools have gone back and forth with passing and failing since 2003. So, earlier this year, Perkins approached the board with the idea of curriculum mapping. That will meet state improvement requirements for Improvement Year 3, Corrective Action, which the corporation has just entered.

“Each and every one of our schools know exactly who has not passed and what they need to do,” she said. “It comes down to what are we going to do with those kids that don’t pass, and curriculum mapping will help us to make those kids pass.”

Perkins said curriculum mapping would help close gaps in what students learn, while also eliminating overlapping lessons. She said that would help to get everyone on the same track.

“It is the only research-based initiative that is districtwide that has been proven to make a difference in student achievement,” Perkins said.

However, she added, many students are already behind their peers by the time they start kindergarten, because of others taking years of preschool.

Perkins said the full-day kindergarten program would help bring those children up to the level of their peers.

“Hopefully, that will help with our subgroup kids, because they come to us behind,” she said. “Hopefully, being in kindergarten all day will help to catch them up.”

Though it may take years to see the progress, Perkins said, “it will pay off.”

Perkins said although not making AYP is disappointing, there is a silver lining.

“I’ve got mixed emotions about this,” she said. “I want our school corporation to not be in corrective action, but I know we need to do curriculum mapping and this is something that will make us do that.”

At the next school board meeting, Perkins plans to ask the group to approve a vendor to get the mapping started. She said this initiative would take NA-FC schools to the next level.

“They’re good schools and this is going to make us great,” she said.

        

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