3 Schools Miss Federal Requirements in Waukesha

Three Waukesha schools have been noted as missing adequate yearly progress as required by No Child Left Behind guidelines, according to a preliminary report from the Department of Public Instruction.

State and federal laws require the annual review of school performance to determine if student academic achievement and progress is adequate. According to NCLB, all Wisconsin public schools and districts must meet the state’s four adequate yearly progress objectives which include: test participation; reading performance; mathematics performance; and graduation or attendance.

Superintendent Todd Gray informed the Waukesha School Board of the concern at Wednesday night’s school board meeting, saying that the three schools have some areas that need improvement and that the issue will be discussed further at curriculum and instruction committee meetings.

“These school may still have been making progress but not enough and just not in certain areas,” Gray said. “The schools in general, when you take the whole population, have been doing very well.”

In Wisconsin, adequate yearly progress is based on the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examinations and the Wisconsin Alternate Assessment administered in Fall 2010.

According to the preliminary report of the district’s annual review available online, the three schools with areas of concern are Butler Middle School, Horning Middle School and South High School.

• At Butler, the area of concern is math for students with disabilities.
• At Horning, the areas of concern is math and reading for students with disabilities.
• At South, the area of concern is reading for economically disadvantaged students.

Although the district has these areas where they missed adequate yearly progress, they did receive an overall status of satisfactory because they have not missed adequate yearly progress in the same area for two consecutive years. An overall status of satisfactory does not require improvement under state or federal accountability requirements.

Gray told the board that Central Middle School was on the list last year and is now off, “evidence we do take that seriously.”

He also told the board that every year the bar gets higher and higher.

“With an increase in proficiency targets for reading and mathematics, more schools and districts have received preliminary notification that they missed one or more adequate yearly progress objectives…. The proficiency target for reading went from 74 percent last year to 80.5 percent and the mathematics proficiency target went from 58 percent to 68.5 percent,” a letter from the school district about the results of the review states.