City school districts react to NCLB report

For one of Whitley County’s two city school districts, the 2005 No Child Left Behind report was welcome news. For the other, it was a mixed bag.
The federal indicator of educational progress for schools across the nation gave the Williamsburg school district a passing grade, but showed the Corbin Independent School District below expectations in the area of reading for students with disabilities.
“We are pleased with the direction the school is going right now,” said Loren Connell, Director of Instruction with the Williamsburg School District. “There are things we are still working to improve and I don’t think we are where we want to be just yet, but things are positive. There are a lot of people here working every day to make sure kids get a quality education at Williamsburg.”
The district’s only school made adequate yearly progress (AYP) in all 10 of its target goals. Scores from Kentucky’s Commonwealth Accountability Tests (CATS) given to fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth, 10th and 11th grade students in April are used to generate the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) report. It is the second straight year Williamsburg has made progress.
Brenda Hammons, Assistant Superintendent for Corbin schools, said all her district’s schools did well, individually, meeting NCLB goals. As a district, though, the report says educators failed to make AYP among students with disabilities in the area of reading. No Child Left Behind requires districts to make measurable progress with subpopulations of students as well. Those subpopulations are broken down by factors like ethnicity, family income and disabilities. None of the districts schools have enough students with disabilities to be rated in that area, but the district as a whole does. There are 286 students with disabilities in Corbin schools.
“We realize that this is an area of concern across the state for lots of reasons,” Hammons said. “It is a challenging area … but that’s just the rules of the game. Corbin has always looked at things as a challenge. This may be just the thing to say OK, here’s a population in need and we’ve recognized it but we’ve not done everything we can yet.”
“Sometimes, things like this push you to even be a better school district if you take it in that regard.”
The district scored above, often well above, goals in reading and math among all other groups of students.
Hammons said students with disabilities are a hard group to target for specialized instruction because of the variance in disabilities. Some she says suffer simply from speech impediments or mile reading problems. Others are more severe.
Hammons said the district spent about $40,000 recently to institute a reading program that will be expanded, particularly for the students in this group.
Connell said though Williamsburg seems to be in a good position district wide, more can be done. The school has already met targets meant for the 2011-12 school year, provided the demographics at the school don’t change. More worrisome are dropout requirements. Williamsburg had only two dropouts last year, and can have only one this upcoming school year in order to make AYP. After that, the district can’t have any students not complete school. He thinks dropouts and students with disabilities are two areas federal officials may address in the program in the near future.
“When you are talking about one student who can affect the course and direction of your district, it does sound a little harsh,” he said. “I think it’s something that may be fine tuned at some point.”
Connell said the district plans to supplement its normal instruction with Leapfrog Schoolhouse products this upcoming year – the company that produces popular Leap Pad educational toys available at many chain stores.
The No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law January 2002 and requires states to provide information on schools and school districts progress toward proficiency by the year 2014.
For complete district-by-district and school-by-school results, visit the Kentucky Department of Education website at www.education.ky.gov.