Lake Park officials say new curriculum yielding gains

Roughly a year after Lake Park High School District 108 started implementing an overhaul of its curriculum, officials say they're seeing academic progress.

While the district recently announced its composite ACT score remained at 22.3 for the Class of 2009, the same as the previous year, officials say that's just one measure of progress.

Lynne Panega, the district's associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction, said the school is at a "tipping point" now that the curriculum changes, dubbed The Lancer Design for Excellence, are being applied to both freshmen and sophomores.

To create the changes, staff and administration spent three years rewriting courses to include college readiness standards used by ACT when it develops its test.

This is the second school year freshmen classes fall under the Lancer Design for Excellence and the first year for sophomores. Next year junior classes also will be taught using the new curriculum.

"The first year it was implemented, Lake Park finally achieved Adequate Yearly Progress (under the No Child Left Behind Act) in 2007, and that was huge for us," said Panega. "It's really exciting because we are starting to see changes."

But with the most recent scores, the district did not meet Adequate Yearly Progress requirements in reading or math.

It has made large gains, however, in its offerings of advanced placement classes and exams associated with these college-level courses. In 2008, the school offered 798 advanced placement exams in 17 different subject areas to students in ninth through 12th grades. Five years ago, that number was just around 400.

In addition, more than 80 percent of the students who took those exams scored 3 or higher on the 5-point scale, which typically qualifies them for college credit.

"One of our strategic goals is a rigorous curriculum," said Panega. "When you see an AP course at the freshman level, some people initially thought, 'Can a freshman student handle this?' and our students rose to the occasion. The teachers also did considerable professional development to prepare."

Next year, Lake Park will expand its advanced placement offerings further, implementing an AP language and composition course at the junior level. Currently, a group of students are enrolled in the new advanced placement human geography course, which debuted this academic year.

Despite steady test scores and academic gains, administrators said they know District 108 still has a lot of work ahead to improve scores on standardized tests and meet overall Adequate Yearly Progress requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act.

The school currently does not meet AYP because special education subgroups did not meet standards in both reading and math.

"We definitely aren't satisfied across the board," Panega said. "But we believe we are moving in the right direction.

"The changes we are making are not just a reaction to not making AYP. Let's say we made AYP in every subgroup, we'd still stand by our new design. Students are starting to show improvements and there's a lot of good news that is going to come if we stay the course," she said.

<p class="factboxheadblack">Lake Park ACT scores</p> <p class="News">Here's a look at District 108's composite ACT scores for the last five years.</p> <p class="News">2005: 21.6 </p> <p class="News">2006: 21.9</p> <p class="News">2007: 21.5</p> <p class="News">2008: 22.3</p> <p class="News">2009: 22.3</p>