Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Re Langley and special education classrooms -- or really any school with students in self-contained classrooms. IT is true Langley has a high percentage of thsoe students. What is less clear is whether all those students are in testing years or not.
But Langley has 150 students who are at risk -- which is clearly affects the test score data far more than the students in the self-contained classrooms (although obviously, some students can be both severely disabled and at-risk). The at-risk student 4+ rate is 6% ELA /5% Math compared to the not at-risk 4+ rate of 10%/15%.
FYI The following DCPS schools have more than 25 students in a Level 4 classroom (highest level of needs) in 17-18 (from OSSE enrollment audit spreadsheets). I'm excluding River Terrace, which is all SN.
The # of students in level 4 classroom / total enrollment
Tyler 33/525
Patterson 36/574
Seaton 25/371
Ludlow-Taylor 34/414
CW Harris 29/278
Whittier 29/325
Beers 48/484
Langley 39/275
Yes. So Langley has a high number of level 4 students, and also it is very high as a percentage of the total school population.
A large special ed program can be advantageous because there is funding for a dedicated program manager, and the school can offer full-time positions to the various therapists, which makes it easy to attract good people. It also means a full-time nurse, which a school of that size might not otherwise have.
It is true that the non-Level IV test scores are also not so hot. It is hard to compare this year PARCC to last year because they have made some changes in how the data is displayed. For anyone looking at Langley (or any school) for preschool or K, I would encourage you to take a detailed look at the PARCC, request K-2nd test scores, and also look median growth percentiles. PARCC does not tell you much if a lot of students are new to the school that year, and a lot of them are (everywhere, not just Langley). There is a lot more than meets the eye if you just look at the oversimplified display on School Profiles.