Most Fort Scott schools meet AYP

A recent report from the Kansas State Department of Education shows that USD 234 and Fort Scott Middle School did not meet adequate yearly progress (AYP) requirements for the 2010-11 school year.

According to the report, FSMS is one of 213 schools in Kansas and USD 234 is one of 77 districts statewide that did not meet the standards last year. For districts to meet AYP, each student group must meet or exceed the annual targets in reading and math. If a single student group does not make AYP, the entire district is labeled as not making AYP, part of the federal No Child Left Behind act.

Preliminary data indicates that FSMS did not meet AYP based on data from the 2011 state assessments taken this spring.

Principal Barbara Albright said students in two areas who took the test -- the "all students" group and the subgroup of "white" students -- were within the confidence band for the 2010 reading target goal of 87.8 percent. However, for the first time, the subgroup of "free-and-reduced lunch" students did not meet the AYP criteria, scoring 79.3 percent.

In math, students in the "free-and-reduced" subgroup achieved a 10 percent gain, scoring 73.8 percent, yet the school missed the 86.7 percent goal in the "all students" group and the "white" students, according to Albright.

For the 2010-11 testing cycle, 87.8 percent of kindergarten through eighth-grade students were required to meet standards on state reading assessments in order to achieve AYP, up from 83.7 percent in 2009-10. Among ninth through 12th grade students, the reading target was 86 percent in 2010-11, up from 81.3 percent in 2009-10.

In math, the AYP target for kindergarten through eighth grade students was 86.7 percent in 2010-11 and 82.3 percent in 2009-10. The math target for ninth through 12th grade students was 82.3 percent in 2010-11 and 76.4 percent in 2009-10.

FSMS is one of several schools across the state working to meet the required standards despite the challenge of performance targets that rise every year until 2014, when targets will be at 100 percent, Albright said.

"We are striving this school year at FSMS to have 91.9 percent of our students 'meet standards' in reading and 91.1 percent of our students 'meet standards' in math," she said. "We know we have only two years remaining until 100 percent of our students need to be performing at standard or better. This is a challenge that all schools are addressing."

FSMS did not meet the AYP standard in the "free-and-reduced" group in math during the 2009-10 school year. That year, students in two groups -- "all students" and the subgroup of "white" students -- exceeded the 2010 reading target goal of 83.7 percent. Students in the "all students" group and "white" subgroup were within the confidence band of the 2010 math target goal of 82.3 percent. The subgroup of "free-and-reduced" students did not meet AYP in math that year, placing the school "on watch," according to Albright.

Seventh-grade science assessments exceeded the 71 percent goal with both the "all students" group and the "free-and-reduced" subgroup meeting standards or above during the 2009-10 school year. On those same assessments during the 2010-11 year, students in the "all students" group and the "white" subgroup met standards or above, however, the "free-and-reduced lunch" subgroup met the goal through confidence band criteria.

The attendance rate in the "all students" group during the 2010-11 year was 92.9 percent, indicating an increase of .4 percent from the previous year, said Albright.

USD 234 also did not meet AYP during the 2009-10 school year.

Despite an increase in performance targets of as much as 8 percent, more Kansas public schools met AYP requirements in the 2010-11 testing cycle than in the previous year. Members of the State Board of Education learned during their monthly meeting Tuesday that 84 percent of the state's 1,367 public schools met AYP in 2010-11, compared to 81 percent in 2009-10. The same number of school districts made AYP in 2010-11 as did the previous year, a news release said.

AYP is a requirement of the No Child Left Behind Act that measures the ability of schools and districts to meet specified targets for student performance and participation on reading and math assessments, as well as in the areas of attendance and graduation.

Performance targets must be met for the full student population, as well as for subgroups based on race/ethnicity, income level, special needs and English proficiency.

Each year, the specified performance target increases, working toward a goal of having 100 percent of students meeting standards by 2014.