How Does a school go from "blue Ribbon" status to "needs improvement' on NCLB

[Anonymous]

in just one year?
I just got my DCPS school choice handbook...

[Anonymous]

which schools are you talkin about?

[Anonymous]

Has your school recently been redistricted? Has the population changed dramatically? It could be any number of things. When I was teaching all it took was one subcategory for a school to be considered failing. For example, if the kids with IEP's(Special Education) in the third grade did not have enough passing scores, in Math, to be considered adaquate the entire school would fail. This could be made up of 5 kids. If the school is in MD google Report Card and MSDE - I think, something along those lines. You should be able to look up your school and you should be able to look at all grades and categories of students and you may find your answer there. If your school is not a Maryland one... sorry I can't help!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:which schools are you talkin about?

Oyster, in DC
Tey DID pick up several new kids when they took over the adams building...plus adding a 7th grade...
Seventh grade is a tough year, perhaps?

[Anonymous]

I haven't read up on this particular situation but I would bet it had to do with the merging of the two schools. Oyster is highly regarded. I haven't heard all that much about Adams but if it doesn't have a large middle class population, it's scores might be lower.

[Anonymous]

22:19 hit the nail on the head. Very helpful. And points out one of the big problems with NCLB. Any change in student population in traditionally challenged groups like special education/IEPs can sink a whole schoo's scoresl on a year to year basis. Which explains part of why well-regarded Murch missed AYP to many people's surprise.

We're new to Oyster and sticking with it based on feedback and analysis from other parents and staff. Merger of a traditionally underperfoming English-only school's population with a bilingual immersion program and a chaotic management of expansion spells trouble on lots of levels.

Like or hate NCLB (I'm the latter), it does force tight analysis on performance on all student groups. School leadership must be held accountable for figuring out and explaining why results are what they are and how they are going to serve your children.

My fingers crossed that next year this time all the new in seat principals will have made improvements for every school population.