Area education officials said they aren’t upset with the Maine Department of Education for mistakenly putting their schools on a monitoring list and telling the public that they had failed to make adequate progress last year.

They’re just happy to be off the list.

“The Department of Education, they’re on a timeline from the federal government to get these out there. They’re rushed,” said SAD 21 Superintendent Thomas Ward, whose Dirigo Middle School was removed from the list Wednesday. “I’m not going to be irate about this.”

Last week, the Maine Department of Education released a list of 143 Maine schools – 27 in central and western Maine – that had not made adequate progress for one year under the No Child Left Behind Act, a controversial federal education reform law. There were 29 ways that schools could make that list, including low student performance in reading or math, low test participation rates, poor daily attendance or poor graduation rates.

On Wednesday, the department corrected itself, taking 19 schools off the list, including schools in Franklin, Oxford and Androscoggin counties.

Deputy Education Commissioner Patrick Phillips said most of the schools were removed because they had higher daily attendance rates than the state originally thought. Others were taken off the list because the state’s preliminary data was wrong.

Cascade Brook School in Farmington and Dirigo Middle School in Dixfield had been placed on the list because only 94 percent of their students took and finished the statewide standardized test used to gauge adequate yearly progress. The state required 95 percent of students to take the test.

Both were removed from the list after school officials found that some completed student tests were missing from the state’s count.

“In small schools, that may mean that one person makes that 95 percent,” said SAD 9 Assistant Superintendent Sue Pratt, who oversees Farmington-area schools.

The correction was a relief, she said.

“As a teacher, it doesn’t feel good to be on any list like that,” she said. “I’m sure there was a sigh of ‘OK, this is good.'”

Oxford Elementary School was put on the list because its poor students did not perform well enough on the test. But the state had determined a school’s poverty rate by asking students whether they had Internet access at home – a question that educators took issue with because some poor families have Internet access while some affluent families don’t.

Until it can verify that the Internet question was valid, the Maine Department of Education agreed to remove schools that were listed solely based on the performance or participation of their poor students. Most of the 35 or 40 schools affected were taken off the list before it was released to the public last week, the deputy education commissioner said. The few that remained, like Oxford Elementary, were removed Wednesday.

It was welcome news to SAD 17 Assistant Superintendent Mark LaRoach, who oversees schools in the Oxford area.

“I’m delighted,” he said.

Along with a new monitoring list, the state also released a list of high performing or improving schools.

Phillips Middle School in SAD 58 was newly listed as a high performing school.

“We’re pleased, but at the same time it seems arbitrary,” said Superintendent Quenten Clark.

Although the school was named one of the best in the state, he can’t forget that another school, Phillips Primary, originally made the list because it had terrible daily attendance.

The school had been closed for a year.

The state removed Phillips Primary School before the list was released to the public. The mistake highlighted for Clark all the random situations and unintentional errors that can put schools on the monitor list.

“There are a whole lot of other schools on the bad list that are good schools,” he said. “I guess it was our day when the kids took the test.”

Other educators are more forgiving.

The Cave Hill School, a Franklin school with 88-students in kindergarten through grade eight, had been placed on the monitor list last week for low daily attendance.

“Apparently it was a data error,” said Principal Harvey Kelley. “I called up to ask what the heck they were talking about.”

On Wednesday the school was taken off the monitoring list. Instead it won a spot among the schools showing improvement.

It was the only school to come off one list and be placed on another.

Kelley said he doesn’t hold a grudge against the state for placing his now-celebrated school on the monitoring list.

He said the Maine Department of Education was flooded with a massive amount of data and was required to deal with it on a tight deadline.

“I’m amazed that there weren’t more problems,” he said.

The state’s deputy education commissioner said his department is still going through school system appeals and test data. He expects the Maine Department of Education will release one more revised monitoring list in the next week.

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