Palisades Charter High School administrators are taking measures to improve the school’s Academic Performance Index (API) and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) scores. API is a state standard that measures every public school’s progress from year to year and is based on test results from the Standardized Testing and Reporting program (STAR), the California High School Exit Examination and the California Alternate Performance Assessment. In the past three years, PaliHi has improved its API score schoolwide by 22 points from 797 to 819. Granada Hills Charter High School, which is larger than PaliHi but has similar demographics, scored 874. Nearby University High, Santa Monica High and Venice High posted lower than 800. ’Our goal is to gain 20 points in the next five years,’ Director of Instruction Richard Thomas told the PaliHi board at its December 14 meeting. The school must also meet AYP, a federal No Child Left Behind mandate that looks at the same standardized tests as API but requires that a certain percentage of students in each subgroup score proficient or above in math and English. The subgroups include: every ethnic group, students with disabilities, English learners and socio-economically disadvantaged students. The threshold rises every year, and in 2010, high schools were required to have 54.8 percent of students in each subgroup score proficient or above in math and 55.6 percent in English. PaliHi’s students with disabilities, English learners and African Americans did not meet the standards in both math and English. Socio-economically disadvantaged students also did not fulfill the requirements in English; therefore, PaliHi did not meet Adequate Yearly Progress. ’It is critical to address these scores since we are in the first year of Program Improvement,’ Thomas said, explaining that Program Improvement (PI) means the school did not make AYP two consecutive years and must implement changes to improve scores. If a school remains in PI for four years, the school is required to set up an alternative governance plan, which can include replacing all or most of the teachers and administrators or contracting with an outside entity to manage the school. Principal Marcia Haskin told the board that she and four other PaliHi administrators have visited 80 classes since the beginning of the school year to evaluate teachers. A peer assistance review team is being created to assist under-performing teachers. ’I don’t want the teacher doing a dog and pony show,’ Haskin said. ‘I ask them ‘What are you doing to engage the learner?” She and the other administrators give the teachers tips on how to involve the entire class in the lesson. Haskin is also asking teachers to analyze the testing data, so they can better target their instruction. ’I can’t tell you how proud I am of the work that has been done this semester,’ she said. Starting next semester, specific students will be required to receive tutoring. The students will be assigned to a study hall period with a student tutor and a teacher. The school now has a tutoring center, where students can voluntarily obtain help. Once a month, Haskin will host parent support groups using the Ojai Foundation’s council program’s methods, which she describes as ‘a process of communication where people sit in a circle, listening and speaking from the heart.’ Parents will be encouraged to talk about their concerns and how they perceive their roles in helping their child academically. In addition, administrators plan to closely monitor English learners. Haskin plans to ensure that all teachers are effectively using an approach called SDAIE (Specially Designed Instruction in English), which is designed to give students skills in both the subject matter and the English language. At the December 14 meeting, Thomas also pointed to the low math scores as an area that needs improvement. Fifty-five percent of all students were not proficient in algebra 1, and 73 percent were not proficient in geometry, according to the 2010 California Standards Test (CST) results. Seventy-five percent of African Americans and 65 percent of Hispanics/Latinos were not proficient in algebra 1, while 86 percent of African Americans and 75 percent of Hispanics/Latinos were not proficient in geometry. Sixty-two percent of white students were not proficient in geometry and 48 percent in algebra 2. Furthermore, there was a significant decrease by the freshmen on their CST scores from 2009 to 2010 in algebra 1 and geometry. The students dropped from 81 percent scoring proficient or above to 70 percent and 72 percent to 46 percent, respectively. In response, Haskin said she intends to visit every math classroom to evaluate the teachers starting in January. In addition, Thomas said that the academic achievement gap between whites and Asians and African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos has widened in the past three years. In 2010, African Americans were the lowest performing group on campus with an API score of 709 and Hispanics/Latinos were the second lowest with a score of 760. Asians secured 905 and whites 889. Despite scoring the lowest, African Americans have made progress, increasing their API score by 25 points since 2008. Haskin attributes the success to the Village Nation program, where African-American students attend assemblies to discuss cultural and academics issues, participate in community service projects and work with an adult mentor. ’It is giving them extra attention and understanding of their ethnicities,’ Haskin said. The Village Nation program will be expanded next semester to include Hispanics/Latinos with the goal of improving their test scores. Overall, Haskin believes that students will perform better academically if teachers expect more from them. She would like to see students enrolled in ‘regular’ classes assigned the same work as those in ‘honors’ and ‘advanced placement’ classes. She told the board that she will provide updates monthly on the progress made. ’Hopefully, we will see a bump up this year,’ Haskin said.
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