BUCKFIELD – SAD 39 Superintendent William Shuttleworth said all district schools have been deemed in complete compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind Act passed recently by Congress.
“With all schools in the state put on alert that 190 schools will be identified publicly that they are not in compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act, a letter from Commissioner of Education Susan Gendron has caused us a great sigh of relief. We received notice . . . that all schools in the district have made adequate yearly progress placing them in full compliance with the rigid federal guidelines. As an administrative team, we looked at complicated formulas the feds were using for identification, and it seemed nearly impossible to make any predictions of who was going to be on the list. We are extremely proud, however, to have been designated as meeting full compliance at all levels, but we also know that the next round in another year will cause the same concerns.”
Shuttleworth said schools will be placed into three categories.
“There will be schools that have shown annual yearly progress and those whose progress will be monitored annually. Also included will be those who will be placed on continuous improvement priority. This last category has severe implications for school districts, which include requiring identified districts to offer school choice and strict use of how federal dollars must be used to improve instruction,” he said.
“Under this complex categorization process a school or district can be identified as not having met the standards in any one of several areas needed to meet the federal criteria. The feds look at graduation rates, results on the Maine Learning Results program, and how subcategories perform on standardized tests. These subcategories include children with limited English proficiency, special education students, different ethnic groups, migrant students and gender groupings.”
Shuttleworth added, “For the moment we are just darn happy to have done well enough to escape needless embarrassment of a federal law that places far too much emphasis on punishing hardworking school districts. We have a great little school system and these results show that rural schools with limited funds can compete with the bigger and wealthier schools.”
SAD 39 includes the towns of Buckfield, Hartford and Sumner.
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