Growth met; AYP not

Published 1:18 pm Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Growth met; AYP not

Gatesville Elementary is lone local school to hit all targets

By Cal Bryant

Editor

GATESVILLE – Only one of the five schools within the Gates County Public Schools system hit all of the targets within the annual Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) report.

The preliminary numbers for the 2010-11 school year were released last week, showing that only Gatesville Elementary made AYP as students there met 17 of 17 (100 percent) of the target goals.

Two other Gates County schools came close to meeting AYP as both Buckland Elementary and T.S. Cooper Elementary hit 15 of 17 targets (88.2%).

Gates County High School (11 of 17 targets; 64.7%) and Central Middle School (13 of 21 targets; 61.9%) also failed to meet AYP.

While the AYP report measures subgroups of students, all of Gates County schools met expected growth as outlined by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Of those five schools, three – Buckland, T.S. Cooper and Gates County High School – made high growth.

“AYP has to do with subgroups; you can miss one target by one student and the entire subgroup is reported as missing the target,” Gates County Schools Superintendent Dr. Zenobia Smallwood said. “Ultimately we want to meet all targets in every subgroups; student growth is very important

“We realize we have some work to do, just like we do every year, but, overall, we’re pleased with the direction we are going,” Dr. Smallwood continued. “We’re already looking at educational strategies we need to address this year and in years to come.”

All results are preliminary pending State Board of Education approval when they meet on Aug. 4.

Gates County’s AYP efforts were affected by several changes made by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. The biggest change came with an increase in the Proficiency Target Goals, as scheduled in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

For the current reporting period (2010-11), the target goals for grades 3-8 increased to 71.6 percent proficient in reading and 88.6 percent proficient in math. The 2009-10 numbers in those two categories were 43.2 percent and 77.2 percent respectively.

In grade 10, the target goals this year were 69.3 percent proficient in reading/language arts and 84.2 percent proficient in math. Those numbers are higher than last year, especially in language/reading arts where the old proficiency rate was 38.5 percent. The 10^th grade math proficiency rate was 68.4 percent last year.

Gates County students performed at higher levels under the old AYP percentage rates. In the 2009-10 AYP report, three of five schools met all targets – Buckland Elementary (17 of 17), Central Middle (21 of 21) and Gatesville Elementary (17 of 17) while T.S. Cooper fell just one target short (16 of 17).

Two schools met AYP during the 2008-09 academic year – Central Middle (21 of 21) and T.S. Cooper (17 of 17). Buckland and Gatesville each were one target shy (both at 16 of 17) of scoring 100 percent.

Gates County only had one school to meet AYP during each the 2007-08 (Gatesville Elementary; 17 of 17 targets) and 2006-07 (Gates County High School; 17 of 17 targets) reporting periods.