Principal dismisses failing label

When Valley High School Principal Ron Montoya studies his students' performance on the federal No Child Left Behind benchmarks, one word comes to mind: perplexed.

Montoya boasts that the number of students who met federal standards in the 2006-07 school year increased in both math and English by more than 4 percentage points from the previous school year.

But because his students failed to meet federal targets in three of 37 categories tested, two of which included the performance of special education students, his school was labeled as failing.

He refuses to accept the federal designation.

"We're extremely upset about it," Montoya said. "There are a tremendous amount of success stories within my student population as far as test scores are concerned."

Valley wasn't alone in the number of high schools that failed to meet federal targets.

Although the Clark County School District met federal benchmarks as a whole for the first time since the inception of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, the performance of high schools and middle schools lagged compared with elementary schools.

The federal law determines a school's performance based on the showing of students from 37 subgroups. Subgroups can be defined by race, special education needs, primary language and income level. If one subgroup at a school fails, the school fails.

Of the 40 traditional high schools in the Clark County School District, 13 met federal standards this school year, 33 percent.

Middle schools also had a low percentage of passing schools: 21 of 56 met federal standards, nearly 38 percent. But nearly three-quarters of the district's 199 elementary schools met federal standards.

None of the district's middle or high schools reached the highest designation for school performance, exemplary, while 11 elementary school reached that mark.

Sue Daellenbach, academic manager of the district's Assessment and Accountability Division, said the lower performance on federal standards at the high schools was not surprising.

The benchmarks for high school students was higher than that of middle and elementary students, she said.

At least 52 percent of high school juniors had to meet federal requirements in math, and at least 78 percent had to meet requirements in English, for a school to have met federal guidelines.

Only the scores of juniors counted toward a school's federal designation.

Of the students tested in grades three through eight, 40 percent needed to pass federal benchmarks in English, and 43 percent needed to meet targets in math, for a school to meet federal requirements.

The federal standards in those subjects will increase to 100 percent by the 2013-14 school year, when the law dictates that all public school students must perform at their grade level.

Daellenbach said more social constraints exist for students in high school than elementary schools.

"There are a lot more challenges at high schools," Daellenbach said. "When you start getting older kids, they start thinking about having to work. They start to become more social. ... There are more demands placed on them."

The district recently began several initiatives at the high schools that should prove effective in upcoming years, she said.

Some of the initiatives include requiring this fall that freshman and subsequent classes take four years of math and three years of science classes.

Science will be added to the state's high school proficiency exam in spring 2008. Sophomores and subsequent classes will need to pass that exam, with the math, reading and writing portions of the test to earn a diploma.

Daellenbach said that on average, students in elementary through high schools exceeded federal standards in English and math. But in many instances, such as Valley High School, middle and high schools failed federal standards in a few subgroups only, she said.

"That happened many times," Daellenbach said.

Lauren Kohut-Rost, the district's deputy superintendent of instruction, said she is hoping that more student data being available will help middle schools improve.

This past school year marked the first time the performance of sixth- and seventh-graders were included in the federal standards. In prior years, only eighth-graders were tested.

Kohut-Rost said middle school teachers will be able to track individually the performance of all their students on a test that counts toward federal standards with the district's Instructional Data Management System software program.

"It will benefit us in ensuing years," Kohut-Rost said. "We will have a clearer understanding of what their needs are as they move from sixth to seventh to eighth grade."

Joy Lea, principal of yet-to-be-open Faiss Middle School near Fort Apache and Sunset roads, will start the school year this fall under a pilot program that uses a block schedule.

Although some high schools offer block schedules, which allows students to take eight classes a week instead of six, the method is not common at middle schools.

Lea said the change should result in an easier transition from fifth grade to sixth grade for her students.

Elementary students are usually taught English and math during 80-minute intervals per day. Her students will be taught the same way, Lea said.

Kohut-Rost said the district will watch Faiss closely to see whether the pilot program translates into improved students results.

Lea said that if the approach proves successful, other middle schools will take notice.

"We believe this is going to be the wave of the future," Lea said.

MORE SCHOOLS MEETING STANDARDS

Nevada schools are doing a better job meeting federal No Child Left Behind Act standards, the state's Department of Education says.

For the second consecutive year, Nevada, in the 2006-07 school year, increased the number of schools attaining federal benchmarks. Among the state's 630 schools, 432 meet federal requirements, 69 percent.

That figure is almost a 5 percentage point increase from the 2005-06 school year when slightly more than 64 percent of Nevada's schools met federal targets.

Preliminary data from the state indicate that 16 out of 17 school districts in the state met federal benchmarks as a whole. Only Elko County failed to meet the targets.

Gloria Dopf, the state's deputy superintendent of instruction, said the department probably will determine next week whether the state met federal benchmarks as a whole.

Dopf said she was optimistic because the state's largest school system, which is the fifth-largest in the nation, the Clark County School District, met all federal standards for the first time since the inception of the law in 2002.

If Nevada meets all federal targets as a state, it would mark the first time that has happened since the far-reaching education law was enacted.