AYP: Elwood Middle school struggles

By Brandi Watters

March 25, 2008 10:17 pm

— The Elwood Community School Corp. was 2-for-4 this year when No Child Left Behind adequate yearly progress results were released Tuesday.
While Elwood High School and Oakland Elementary rebounded from last year’s poor AYP standings for a passing grade this time around, Edgewood Elementary School and Elwood Middle School failed to make AYP.
The middle school failed to meet standards in the free lunch subgroups for English and language arts, while the school failed in both math and English achievement for special education students.
Edgewood’s failing subgroups included free lunch students in math and special education students in math.
Jan Kaye is the director of special services for the school district and says the elementary school has already begun examining its curriculum and practices. “Edgewood has a challenge in the area of math this year. The school is busy reviewing what they need to do to turn that around.”
Elwood Middle School has never made AYP but Kaye argues that this does not tell the whole story. “I think it’s just one means of measure. I don’t think it, by itself, depicts a failing school.”
Since Edgewood is a Title 1 school, the district may face penalties in response to the AYP results. Kaye is not yet sure what the repercussions of the failing grade will be. “In terms of what that means for consequences, I’m still unclear.”
Kaye says the elementary school struggles to help special education students and those on the free lunch program for many reasons. “Typically, those youngsters bring many challenges with them to school. When youngsters enter kindergarten in this county, only 65 percent are ready to begin learning to read.”
Playing catch-up with children who aren’t at the same level as other students is always difficult, Kaye explained. “What happens is that the hill you have to climb is pretty steep and pretty high. Those youngsters have probably a lot of challenges when they start school.”
As a whole, the Elwood Community School Corp. did make AYP, an improvement over last year’s failing grade.
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Elwood Community School Corp.
This district made AYP in 17 of 17 categories.
Edgewood Elementary School: Did not make AYP. The school met AYP standards in 13 of 15 categories. Two categories in which the school failed to meet AYP were math achievement subgroups for special education students and those receiving free and reduced lunch. The school met all attendance requirements.
Oakland Elementary School: Made AYP with 15 of all 15 categories met. This school also met attendance requirements.
Elwood Community Middle School: Did not make AYP. This is the sixth consecutive year that the school has failed to meet AYP. The school met AYP standards in 14 of 17 categories but failed to meet or exceed standards in the English achievement subgroups for special education students and those on the free and reduced lunch program. The school also failed to meet requirements for math in the special education subgroup. This school met requirements for attendance.
Elwood Community High School: Made AYP with 13 or 13 categories passed. This school met all graduation requirements.