Area schools hold their own in achievement goals

For Carson City school officials, the results of annual federal proficiency tests this past school year were bittersweet.

While two Carson City schools raised their achievement level, two others fell short, dropping off the list of those making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).

Superintendent Richard Stokes said Pioneer High and Empire Elementary raised their test scores to reach goals for student proficiency, but Mark Twain Elementary and Eagle Valley Middle School failed to do so.

Associate Superintendent Susan Keema said she was very happy with Empire's scores.

"Empire is huge," she said. "They are 78 percent free or reduced lunch and 62 percent limited English proficiency. There's some excellent teaching going on over there."

But to get off the "needing improvement" list, Empire must repeat that success next year.

In order to make Adequate Yearly Progress for the 2008-09 year, at least 51.7 percent of English language students and 54.6 percent of math students in elementary and middle schools had to take and pass proficiency exams.

Keema said Mark Twain missed meeting its English Language Arts percentage by just 1.5 students. Under the federal No Child Left Behind act, that puts the whole school on the list as needing improvement.

She said that's a shame since Mark Twain made AYP last year and was looking at getting off the list for good this time.

Pioneer turned in its second successful AYP tests in a row and made it off the list.

Eagle Valley, however, went on the Needs Improvement list because not enough students passed the math exams this year.

Carson's Montessori charter school was one of the rare schools in the state listed as High Achieving.

Stokes said that to make AYP, both subject areas, language and math, and all the sub-populations such as English Language Learners and special education students, have to all make the mandated percentages. If even one area fails to make the grade - even by one student - the entire school goes on the list as needing improvement.

"But that's what the law implies - no child left behind," Stokes said.

Stokes said he looks forward this year to Empire getting off the list and Mark Twain once again making AYP.

He said, however, it will be a challenge since the percentage of students that must pass the proficiency tests goes up again in 2009-10. For elementary and middle school, it rises to 63.8 percent for language and 65.9 percent for math.

In the high schools, the percentage increases from 82.3 percent to 86.7 percent for language proficiency and 61.9 percent to 71.3 percent for math.

Under the federal law, those percentages continue to rise through the 2014 school year when 100 percent of students must pass proficiency exams for the school to make AYP.

In Churchill County, two elementary schools that met AYP last year failed to do so this year. That means three of Churchill's seven schools are listed as needing improvement.

In Douglas, five of 16 public schools are on the watch list, which means without improvement this year, they will be listed as needing improvement next time. At present, none of the Douglas schools are listed as needing improvement. Zephyr Cove Elementary and George Whittell middle and high school are listed as high achieving.

In Lyon, only one of 19 public schools is listed as needing improvement. Five, however, are on the watch list while one, Silver Springs Elementary, has been designated as high achieving.

Altogether, Nevada has 668 public schools. For the 2009 school year, 395 schools - about 60 percent - met AYP requirements. That is down about 2 percent from the year before.