Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2003 | 11:31 a.m.
Nevada Education Department released a list today of schools that failed to show adequate yearly progress for at least one year, including 47 elementary schools and three charter schools in Clark County. Elementary Schools: Beatty, Beckley, Bell, Bruner, Bunker, Cahlan, Cortez, Crestwood, Culley, Cunningham , Dailey, Dearing, Detwiler, Diskin, Dondero, Ira Earl, Edwards, Elizondo, Fitzgerald, Fong, Galloway, Gragson, Guy, Herr, Hewetson, Jacobson, Jydstrup, Katz Lake, Long, Martinez, May, McMillan, Mendoza, Moore, Mountain View, Newton, Paradise, Rhodes, Ronzone, Rundle, Sewell, Hal Smith, Squires, Thomas, Woolley, Wynn Charter Schools: Keystone, Odyssey, Odyssey Elementary
More than half of the Clark County School District's campuses have been identified as not showing "adequate yearly progress" for at least one year, according to a list released this morning by the Nevada Department of Education.
"It's an all or nothing proposition. If your school misses in one area the entire campus is on the watch list," Edward Goldman, the school distict's southeast region superintendent, said this morning. "If nothing else, the list is going to make schools cognizant of the fact that they can't let any problems slide. They are going to be forced to address the issues."
The state list released this morning includes 129 Clark County School District campuses and three charter schools -- Keystone Academy, and Odyssey Charter School's elementary and high school programs, as not showing test score gains for one year, putting them on the state's "watch list."
The latest list is the first to include 47 Clark County elementary schools on year-round or modified nine-month calendars, for which test scores were the last to be available. The district had previously identified 82 schools on nine-month calendars as being on the watch list. The Clark County School District has also already identified 18 schools as failing to show "adequate yearly progress" for at least two years, putting those campuses on a list of schools "needing improvement."
The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to show the annual progress or face sanctions. Schools must show gains overall and by subgroups of students broken down by ethnicity, low-income, non-native English speakers and special education status. Schools must also show 95 percent participation campuswide and by each of the subgroups.
With the release of today's list, the number of Clark County schools that have not shown adequate yearly progress for at least one year has climbed to 147 of the district's 289 campuses, or 50.8 percent.
The high percentage was predicted last spring by Clark County Schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia, who said he anticipated the number of schools failing to fulfill the requirement would leave some people stunned.
State education officials said there were 27 schools in the state that have failed to make progress for the second year in a row and they have now been given the designation of needing to improve.
Parents of children in those 27 schools will be able to send those students to other schools that were not deemed to be in need of improvement.
Jack McLaughlin, state superintendent of public instruction, released a preliminary list on Oct. 10 that said 21 schools needed improvement. He said the final list includes all of the year-round schools that had not completed their testing.
He also said there were 194 schools of the more than 500 schools in the state that did not make adequate yearly progress for the first year. He said that's an increase of 48 from the preliminary list. Of the 48, 47 are in Clark County.
Of the 194 schools statewide on the list, 132 are in Clark County.
All of those schools must develop plans to correct their deficiencies, he said. But there are no penalties for the 194 schools that are on the list for the first time.
The designations of the schools is based on criteria established in the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
If a school does not make adequate yearly progress for one year it is placed on a "watch list." If the school does not make progress for two or more consecutive years, it is identified as "in need of improvement" and must develop a plan for taking care the deficiencies.
McLaughlin said 14 schools in Clark County are on the "need to improve" list. He said they made progress during the 2002-2003 school year but need to achieve that progress in two consecutive years.
The 14 are the elementary schools of Bracken, Cambeiro, Craig, Herron, Kelly, Lunt, McCall, Park, Sunrise Acres, Tom Williams and Wendell Williams. The middle schools are Bridger, Von Tobel and West Middle.
Elementary schools in Clark County that failed for the second straight year to make progress were Carson, Lynch, Ronnow and Tate.
Laughlin said both the federal and the state law require all schools to move 100 percent of their students to proficient or better performance levels within a 12-month period.
Student test performance is analyzed on the basis of the test scores of various groups within the student population that includes the economically disadvantaged, disabled, limited English proficient and students from each major racial and ethnic group.
The performance is based also on the number of students taking the tests, attendance and graduation rates.
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