After failures, middle school meets state standards

Carpentersville Middle School, a perennial underachiever in Community Unit District 300, has finally made the grade.

This year, the east-side school received passing marks on its state tests after five consecutive years of failing to meet benchmarks.

If the school passes again next year, it will be removed from academic watch and will no longer have to follow federal mandates to improve performance.

Although Carpentersville Middle School as a whole met state standards last year, each demographic subgroup of the school did not, as required by the No Child Left Behind Act.

District officials said the middle school was able to get a passing grade because it raised test scores among two groups: bilingual students and students with disabilities.

A mandated restructuring plan led those students and their peers to get better marks on the Illinois State Achievement Test this year, said Tom Hay, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction.

The plan was put in place last year after Carpentersville Middle School received a failing grade in seven of the past eight years.

The oversight committee created to implement the plan focused on raising expectations in bilingual classrooms, making math more relevant to students, and improving student-teacher relationships, Hay said.

The committee brought in reading and math coaches to work with teachers, reduced class sizes and cut down sharply on disciplinary problems, officials said.

Each teacher looked at students' performance on the test and tailored lessons accordingly.

"Every year, they look at their gaps in performance areas, and they emphasize them for a longer period of time," Hay said.

The district also focused on the elementary schools that feed into Carpentersville Middle School.

"We believed that if we improved our performance at the elementary schools, we'd be sending our secondary schools a better product," Hay said.

All of the district's elementary schools met state standards this year, Hay said.

Now, the district must focus on bringing Dundee-Crown High School, which Carpentersville Middle School feeds into, up to snuff. The high school got a failing grade this year.

"We certainly want to implement a lot of the positive leadership at CMS in our high schools," Hay said.