City Schools of Decatur found out late last week that all schools in the district had made Adequate Yearly Progress as defined under the Federal “No Child Left Behind Act”.  This is the second straight year that all CSD schools have achieved this mark.

However, the classification was especially notable this year as it was originally believed that based on passing rates, Renfroe Middle School would not make AYP.

However, thanks to an appeal by the Georgia Department of Education to the federal government regarding the test results of Students with Disabilities, Renfroe passed.  CSD’s Bruce Roaden was good enough to boil it down for us…

The Georgia Department of Education appealed to the federal government requesting “interim federal flexibility” for the Students with Disabilities (SWD) subgroup so that schools and systems that fail to make AYP based solely on the performance of their SWD subgroup, will receive a mathematical adjustment and thus be able to make AYP. This amendment was denied and then the DOE appealed (CSD was asked to and did support the DOE’s appeal) and the amendment was accepted.

Without the flexibility rule RMS would not have made AYP.

The statewide picture is looking ever more bleak, as federal standards get harder to meet with each passing year.  According to the AJC, two-thirds of all Georgia high schools didn’t make AYP in 2010 and 29% of all public schools in the state failed to meet the federal standards, as requirements for graduation rates and passing rates continue to tick up.  A random mention in the Fayette County News stated that in the Atlanta metropolitan area, only Decatur and Marietta saw all of their schools pass AYP.

If interested, the AJC has a searchable database of the 2010 AYP results for each public school in the state.

Asst. Superintendent Thomas Van Soelen replied to my question about Renfroe’s attendance rate attached to AYP with this note, which was also just posted over on CSD’s website…

The Georgia Department of Education has released the list of schools that made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for 2008-2009. For the initial determination Renfroe is not being shown as making AYP. While the academic successes of Renfroe Middle School merit a status of meeting AYP, an error in reporting attendance rate to the state has delayed this announcement.

City Schools of Decatur has submitted an official appeal and will provide the needed data to show that the attendance rate at Renfroe meets state standards. We fully expect that this situation will be rectified by the second AYP release date in September. Meanwhile, we celebrate the accomplishments of students and teachers at Renfroe and look forward to another year of meeting academic standards!

As reported by Decatur EDtv, 5th and 10th graders at their respective Decatur schools didn’t meet the “No Child Left Behind” standards (known as Adequate Yearly Progress or “AYP”) in math this past year.

EDtv followed up with Decatur Associate Superintendent Dr. Thomas Van Soelen about the District’s new Math Improvement Plan being implemented this coming school year.

If you still have unanswered questions post-video watching, you can also view the actual plan on Decatur EDtv’s website at the bottom of the page.

So, what happens when a school (or two) doesn’t make “Adequate Yearly Progress”? Well luckily, there are no consequences for not making AYP for one year, according to Georgia’s AYP website. However, if it happens for two consequetive years across the district (like this year), the district is labeled “Needs Improvement”. A “needs improvement” school is not a “failing school” according to the state, but is required to develop an action plan to turn things around after two consecutive years of not making AYP, and implement it after three years.

It sounds like Decatur has already developed and will implement a plan after just one year of not making AYP.

We expect nothing less, even if the 23% drop county-wide drop seems to speak more to the inadequacies of changes to the test, rather than the inadequacies of our students.

[h/t: InDecatur]