LEWISTON — In Debra Rodrigue’s second-grade classroom at Longley Elementary School on Tuesday, students worked on subtraction.

“You’re doing good; stay focused,” Rodrigue said to a pair of students.

She instructed one to look at her “buddy’s” answer.

“Is she correct?”

The student nodded as she high-fived her buddy.

“She got the answer right,” Rodrigue said. “Nice work!”

Soon it was time for recess.

Under Rodrigue’s eye, the second-graders put their papers in folders, stood up and formed an orderly line to go outside.

Welcome to a failing school, according to the Maine Department of Education’s new grading system.

On Wednesday, Gov. Paul LePage announced the system that grades each school on an A-F scale as an easy-to-understand snapshot of how schools are doing, a way to draw more non-educators to get involved in helping their schools improve.

Longley got an “F.”

To teachers like Rodrigue, the new grading system is a kick in the stomach. She called the grade “heart-wrenching, because we do work hard here. We’re here because we want to be here. These kids need us.”

No one moves to the Longley neighborhood for the amenities. The poor move here for rents they can afford.

Longley serves a neighborhood that’s among the poorest in Maine and New England; 98 percent of Longley students qualify for free or reduced meals, 58 percent are immigrants who come from non-English-speaking homes.

And a lot of families move in and out of these downtown neighborhoods.

In the past several years, two-thirds of the students have moved, Principal Linda St. Andre said. That’s not counting the sixth-graders who leave to go to middle school.

“Longley has the most transient population of any school, perhaps, in Maine,” Lewiston Superintendent Bill Webster said. When Longley families’ situations improve, “they move. One teacher told me that half her class moved this year.”

That teacher had raised students “up from below proficiency to proficiency, but now they’re in other schools,” Webster said. “So the credit will go to the receiving school. At the same time, those students were replaced by two students who moved from out of state, three students who came in as immigrants. All are significantly below grade level.”

Which means, “you’re starting over with newcomers learning English. That’s what happens,” Rodrigue said.

With a student population that’s constantly changing, “how do you go from an F to an A?” Rodrigue asked. “The work we’re doing is an A-plus-plus.”

It makes teachers feel let down, “like you’re getting a slap in the face. But it also makes me want to work even harder,” Rodrigue said. “We’re not giving up.”

During a news conference Wednesday in Augusta, LePage was asked about teachers like Rodrigue in schools like Longley, how teachers raise students to proficiency levels only to have them move.

“That teacher’s an absolute hero,” LePage said. “She’s putting kids first. She can’t resolve the fact that people have the right to move on.” For helping students grow, “she gets an A in my book,” LePage said.

His goal in giving each school a grade, he said, is to get more non-educators in communities, including parents, more involved, to pitch in and help schools improve.

“It’s going to work its way up,” the governor said.

Lewiston educators aren’t so sure. “There are great things happening at Longley,” Webster said. “But this score card will not identify that.”

Webster said the vast majority of Longley students start school two years behind their peers and only 15 percent of students are at grade level.

That’s because, he said, many students don’t go to prekindergarten, or English is not spoken at home, or they aren’t read to at night, or they may not have a good family situation at home, or they are in many if not all of those situations.

“Let’s say teachers at Longley give them a year and a half of growth in one year,” Webster said. But students still aren’t proficient.

“So right away, even though teachers at Longley may be doing the absolute best job that any teacher in the world could do, under this formula they’re still a failing school,” he said.

bwashuk@sunjournal.com

Principal: Federal school improvement grant has helped

LEWISTON — Because of its persistently dismal test scores, which predate non-English-speaking immigrants at the school, Longley Elementary three years ago was designated a federal “turn-around” school.

To help the school improve, the federal government in 2010 awarded Longley $2 million to be paid over three years for more resources to boost instruction. The catch was that half of the school’s teachers had to be replaced, as well as the principal.

This is the third year of that school-improvement grant. Since 2011, Longley teachers have undergone much professional development. The school has worked with a math coach and a literacy coach. Teachers collaborated on new strategies. New programs have gotten more parents involved with the school, including many Somali-born parents.

School days have been lengthened. A six-week summer school program started in 2012. Students who are behind have after-school tutoring to help bring students up to grade-level performance.

The school improvement grant has been a success, Principal Linda St. Andre said. “I have the data to show it.” But that success doesn’t show up in the state’s new grading system, she said.

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