SAD 58 has no schools on the monitor list, but two schools are considered to be performing well.
By Samantha C. DePoy
Staff Writer

PHILLIPS – SAD 58 Superintendent Quenten Clark was surprised when he received a letter stating one of his schools had made the state’s list of schools to monitor for lagging progress on the No Child Left Behind standards.

The letter was sent by the state’s Department of Education.

Once he realized the school in question, Phillips Primary, which made the list for logging zero percent attendance, the only response he could muster was a laugh.

Unknown to the state, but known to Clark and others around SAD 58, Phillips Primary school hasn’t been occupied by students for more than a year-and-a-half.

Clark appealed, and it was granted.

Now, SAD 58 has no schools on the monitor list, but logged two schools on the list of those considered to be performing well – Kingfield Elementary for improvement in reading, and Strong Elementary for improvement in math.

Strong Elementary was also recognized as a consistently high-scoring school, the only school in the region to be honored.

Clark says it’s nice that his schools didn’t make the “bad” list, but did show up on the “good” list. But like many school administrators, he isn’t losing any sleep over this whole assessment business.

“I think the whole thing is BS,” he said Monday. “It’s invalid and invasive and bad for education and bad for economic development. We’ve got the best schools in the country and we are working diligently to be just like everyone else. It’s just nonsense.”

His biggest concern, Clark said, is that Maine is setting a standard that is not consistent with those set by other states and in essence, selling itself short. The result is that Maine’s schools look like they aren’t up to snuff, when in reality, Maine students pull in some of the top testing scores in the nation. People will be deterred from relocating to the state because of Friday’s list, he said.

Clark is also worried that the list will effect morale in schools around the state.

The reason SAD 58 schools didn’t fail this year is because the class size is too small for them to be considered. Next year may be a different picture and Clark and his staff aren’t sitting on their laurels just yet. “It doesn’t mean we won’t be on the bad list next year,” he said with a chuckle. “Our teachers will continue to work hard and do their best.”

SAD 9 put on monitor status by a slim margin

Meanwhile in SAD 9, the largest district in Franklin County, there were three schools on the list. But because two of the schools were docked for not have 95 percent participation in testing by just a slim margin, Superintendent Michael Cormier said he is taking the monitor list with a grain of salt.

Academy Hill School in Wilton was cited, Cormier said, because only 94.4 percent of students participated in the MEA’s, instead of the required 95 percent. If students skipped just a section, they were considered to have not taken the test, he said.

A similar situation occurred for fourth-graders in both math and reading at Farmington’s Cascade Brook School when 95 percent of a subpopulation didn’t take the test. Cormier declined to specify which subgroup caused the small snafu, saying he didn’t want to single them out. There are 84 subpopulations though, he said, that could be considered, for example: special education students, males or females.

In both schools, academic performance met or exceeded the state’s expectations.

Meanwhile at Mount Blue Middle School, which has a population of nearly 500 seventh- and eighth-grade students from around the nine-town district, it was another small margin that put the school on monitor status, this time for not achieving academic performance expectations in both math and reading.

Cormier says he will meet with administrators this week, and look at re-working program offerings, staffing and resources at the school.

As thankful as he is that the state provides the data, he is quick to point out that it’s all relative and that no teacher or administrator should hang their head.

“This is a snapshot. It’s just one piece of information. You deal with it and then we move forward. It’s one more challenge,” he explained.

The assessment is counter-productive, he admits and, “Clearly doesn’t fit rural schools.”

SAD 36 principal surprised

Livermore Falls Middle School Principal Matt Gilbert said he was surprised to see the school on the monitor status list for eighth-grade reading.

“Our scores have been pretty consistent with what the scores are on state average,” Gilbert said.

Administrators and teachers plan to take a proactive approach to getting reading scores up and to improve students’ reading skills, Gilbert said.

English, language arts and reading teachers and the administrative team plan to develop a strategy for improvement.

“It will become a focus,” he said. However, Gilbert said, it is difficult to judge a school on one test, on one day.

Jay High considered appeal

Jay High School Principal Peter Brown initially considered an appeal because there were too many variables involved in scoring the test.

But the information they had wasn’t enough to base an appeal on, Brown said.

Brown said he was surprised to see his school listed because for the last eight or nine years, eleventh-graders have scored a point above state average, a point below state average or at state average.

“We tested all of our kids, all of our kids that could be tested,” he said.

Superintendent Robert Wall, Brown and Middle School Principal Scott Albert met to discuss the issue after they learned both the high school and middle school were on the list. Wall said the Middle School provided additional information to the state and an appeal was granted.

“We’ll do what we need to do to correct the situation,” Brown said of improving reading scores.

Wall said one of the things people need to remember is this is a snapshot of student achievement. There are other aspects to monitor students’ daily achievement and the progress they show, Wall said.

It is not always measured by a test taken on a particular day, Wall said.

“We certainly realize the (Maine Educational Assessments) are important and we’re going to be doing everything we can to improve our schools,” Wall said.

“The important part,” Wall said, “is that the overall picture is we’re doing a good job.”

Officially, the window schools have to submit an appeal has closed, but some are still trickling in as the Maine Department of Education pours over the data.

Some schools may come off the list.

Staff Writer Donna M. Perry contributed to this report.

sdepoy@sunjournal.com

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