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![TMCNet: School Board considers SOL scores, more [Wytheville Enterprise, Va.]](http://images.tmcnet.com/siteart/invisible.gif)
School Board considers SOL scores, more [Wytheville Enterprise, Va.]
(Wytheville Enterprise (VA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Sep. 11--Improvement?
Yes.
Success?
Not yet.
All three of Wythe County's middle schools made gains in 2008-09 Standards of Learning math pass rates, but two are projected to again fall short of state benchmarks.
Based on preliminary and unofficial results tabulated by the school system, Fort Chiswell and Scott Memorial middle schools will be accredited with warning for the third straight year due to low math scores.
"They are improving -- slowly," said Marcy Olinger, the school system's supervisor of elementary education, who presented the scores during the School Board's meeting Wednesday night. "But they are improving."
Although scores are not expected to shift significantly from Wythe County's projections, any changes between the school system's tabulations and the state-certified final results will be announced at the School Board's meeting in October.
While FCMS and Scott Memorial's math pass rate improvements of six and seven percentage points, respectively, were not enough to boost their scores above the state's minimum threshold, Rural Retreat Middle School's scores on last spring's tests soared to a satisfactory level.
Rural Retreat middle schoolers improved their math pass rates by 11 percentage points, all the way up to 74 percent, tied with Max Meadows Elementary School's history improvement for the second biggest jump in the county.
For most subject areas, including middle school math, the cutoff for full accreditation is a 70 percent pass rate.
Scott Memorial is projected to have a 67 percent math pass rate, while FCMS remains well short at 58 percent.
Also troubling for the school system is that the gains in middle school math were coupled with plummeting writing pass rates.
RRMS and Scott Memorial each saw its writing SOL pass rate fall from 87 to 71 percent. The 16 percentage point writing drops were the largest in any specific subject among the five areas tested across the county's 12 schools.
FCMS's 11 percentage point drop in writing pass rates, from 86 to 75 percent, was the next largest drop in the county. RRMS's large gain in math coupled with its even larger slump in writing means that its math pass rates are actually projected to be three percentage points higher than those in writing.
Overall, eight of the county's 12 schools saw a drop in writing pass rates, the only of the five subject areas that saw more local schools backtrack from last year's scores.
While areas of concern remain, the school system overall has an upward trend in its pass rates.
Of the 60 pass rates tabulated in the division, 37 went up, 20 went down and three are projected to stay the same compared to 2007-08 levels.
Rural Retreat Elementary School saw improvements in each of the five tested subject areas (English, writing, math, history and science). The school's science pass rate improvement, from 82 percent to 96 percent, was the largest jump in the county. The improvements came after the school in 2007-08 had the lowest pass rates in four subject areas among the division's six elementary schools.
Spiller Elementary School, on the other hand, saw improvement in only one area -- English -- and a projected 1 percentage point pass rate increase at that.
Sheffey Elementary School was the only other school in the county to have more drops than gains in the five subject areas, and it saw improvement in both English and writing scores. Its writing boost of nine percentage points was the largest in that subject area in the county.
In addition to state accreditation, SOL tests are also used to measure federal No Child Left Behind ratings.
To achieve Adequate Yearly Progress this year, the overall student body at each school and students in various subgroups such as income level and race must have achieved 81 percent pass rates on reading exams and 79 percent pass rates on math tests.
Spiller missed the minimum level in both reading and math, while Jackson Memorial Elementary School and FCMS fell short in math.
Scott Memorial came up short in reading, but, like RRMS, showed enough improvement in its math scores to qualify for AYP in math despite not making the 79 percent cutoff.
The county's other eight schools, including RRMS, made AYP in both reading and math.
Overall, the county recorded 526 perfect scores by students on last spring's SOL tests– a significant boost from just a few years ago, but still a decrease from the 553 during the 2007-08 school year.
There were, however, 2,967 passed advanced scores in the county last spring, up 119 compared to 2007-08.
Despite the ups and downs, all of the county's elementary and high schools are expected to be fully accredited by the state.
The effect of the latest scores on education in the county remains a bit murky -- even to those on the School Board and central office staff.
Scott Memorial and FCMS will continue to receive mandated state assistance in improving their math scores. If they fail to meet the 70 percent pass rate threshold again this spring, Olinger said Wednesday night that more stringent oversight from the state will occur during the 2010-11 school year.
Because Wythe County's middle schools are not Title I schools, a federal designation relating to the number of low-income children in the student body, Olinger said even another year of poor scores will not require the school system to offer students at the failing institutions a chance to change schools.
Another year of math pass rates below the minimum standard at Scott Memorial and FCMS will, however, cause the schools' designations to change from accredited with warning to simply not accredited.
"We would in fact lose state accreditation," said School Board member Stephen Sage. "What does that mean? No one really knows."
Whatever effect it may have on the daily lives of students and teachers, the unaccredited club is not a group any school wants to join.
Based on last year's state ratings, only 5 of Virginia's 1,860 public schools -- less than 0.3 percent -- were denied accreditation.
Goal: Open Classrooms To Be Divided
Also on Wednesday, the School Board added open-space areas at Speedwell and Sheffey elementary schools often used by multiple classes -- a long-term complaint -- to the priority list of school renovation projects.
Wesley Poole, the school system's supervisor of facilities and transportation, reported that creating self-contained classrooms out of the open areas at the two schools is likely to cost a total of $170,000 to $195,000.
The renovations would put up fire-safe partitions to divide the space into individual classrooms and shift lighting and heating systems to properly regulate the environment in each new area.
Superintendent Lee Brannon acknowledged that the cost may seem steep, but he said the renovations need to be done well to truly improve the learning atmosphere in the planned self-contained rooms.
"If we're going to do it, we need to do it right," Brannon said. "We see this as an educational need for these two buildings."
While it's unclear when funds for the projects may become available, the School Board directed the central office to continue to work on the issue and made a goal of at least starting work on one of the rooms within the next year if money can be found.
"Please advance this thing," said School Board member Deborah Crigger.
School Board member Coy McRoberts, who has particularly pushed for the open areas to be closed off into individual classrooms, remarked that the current setup -- where, for example, noise from a kindergartner class often carries unobstructed into the third-grade side of the room -- has aggravated countless instructors and students.
"We've lost some good teachers there," McRoberts said.
Web Site Upgrade
Keith Cochran, technology supervisor for Wythe County Public Schools, made a presentation Wednesday regarding a planned revamp of the school system's Web site.
Although a few features have been added here and there, Cochran said the basic design of the page hasn't changed in 10 years.
"As you all know, it's in need of updating," Cochran told the School Board.
Cochran unveiled a template page Wednesday that has an undeniably sleeker look.
The proposed new version has features such as rotating pictures of student accomplishments, easy to navigate menus, a calendar of events and a box of revolving news updates.
The software behind the page, Cochran said, will also be much more user-friendly, allowing school system employees to easily add information to the new site.
In addition, the technology supervisor said he hopes to make the content management system available to the individual schools so they can in turn improve their own Web sites.
After the meeting, Cochran said he hopes to have the new home page active within the next three to four weeks.
The school system's Web site can be accessed at http://wythe.k12.va.us.
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 228-6611 or nhubbard@wythenews.com.
To see more of Wytheville Enterprise or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.swvatoday.com
Copyright (c) 2009, Wytheville Enterprise, Va.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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