Waubonsie focusing on plan to meet NCLB standards

Roughly six months have passed since Waubonsie Valley officials learned their high school would spend it's fifth consecutive year falling short of federal mandates for "adequate yearly progress."

Late last year, schools such as Waubonsie that had failed to meet national No Child Left Behind guidelines for the fifth consecutive year were given four options: fire the staff, reopen as a charter school, hire a private firm to operate the public school or find another way to significantly restructure.

This week, Principal Jim Schmid outlined the school's plan for this year and the future and it centers on the fourth of those options.

He said Waubonsie is in a "difficult situation" with students averaging 22.6 on the ACT yet still not meeting goals based on sub-group scores and "extremely difficult" state expectations.

According to the school's 2007 report card, its black, Hispanic, disabled and economically challenged students failed to meet state standards in reading. Only the black students fared better in math.

"When we restructure, we're talking about changes to the overall education system in an effort to significantly change student achievement," Schmid said Thursday. "In our fifth year we're supposed to write suggestions and plan. The sixth year is the implementation year, but we've been looking at data for three or four years so we're already rolling on this."

In an attempt to increase the scores, Schmid said the district is doing a "compilation of things that would help us maintain the good things and modify what we're doing wrong."

The school already has begun staffing "learning centers" throughout the building where teachers are assigned to assist kids who need additional help in core areas and any students doing well but needing assistance with specific parts of the course.

"We believe it's addressing those needs," he said.

The school also has implemented double algebra and academic literacy block classes in which students take two consecutive hours of the subject at their freshman or sophomore levels.

Because science and social studies aren't vigorously tested, Schmid said students then would take their required three years of those subjects beginning in their sophomore years.

"These students may not be as able to take as many electives because they've had to take a double dose of core classes," Schmid said. "But there's a belief that you're not going to excel in those either until you can master the basic math and literacy skills."

The district also will bring back for a second year its college test preparation class, which 30 percent of the students are taking.

Schmid said school faculty and officials also have tried to do a variety of things related to the specific improvement of black and Latino students.

"We've broken our staff into small learning community groups where we discuss race and relationships and how we can be more culturally responsive," he said. "We've got a 92 percent white teaching staff and 39 percent population of students of color so we talk about being sensitive to the needs of those students."

Moving forward, Schmid said the school is focusing on its mission to develop meaningful relationships with all of the school's students.

"We're educationally and academically solid," he said. "But we need to hold ourselves accountable as the nation's requirements continue to grow more difficult to attain."