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Local schools make grade on NCLB
By Lynn Hotaling
“It’s time to celebrate.”
With those words Superintendent Sue Nations Monday (July 19) announced that all but one of Jackson County’s seven schools recorded adequate yearly progress according to guidelines set by the federal legislation termed “No Child Left Behind.”
Making the grade are Blue Ridge, Cullowhee Valley, Fairview, Scotts Creek, Smokey Mountain Elementary and Smoky Mountain High schools. All six achieved 100 percent of their target goals; had any school fallen even one goal short it would have been labeled as failing.
“NCLB is all or nothing,” Nations said. “You either make 100 or zero.”
The only local school that did not meet the federal standards is the Comprehensive School of Alternatives, Nations said. The school missed its target goals due to its small enrollment, she said.
Four of the county’s five Title I schools – Blue Ridge, Cullowhee Valley, Fairview and Scotts Creek – faced federal sanctions had they not achieved the standard after failing to do so in 2002-03. SMES was the only county school to attain AYP during the last school year.
Title I schools are those that receive federal funds to help economically disadvantaged students who are behind academically. Typically schools that have 40 percent of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunches are Title I schools.
Had the four schools failed to make AYP for a second year, students in those schools would have had the option of transferring to another school in the district, and the school system would have been required to pick up the cost of transportation.
Fear of failure mandated some restructuring in local schools this year, with Cullowhee Valley, Fairview and Scotts Creek opting to eliminate free pre-kindergarten classes for qualifying 4-year-olds, Nations said.
Schools at risk of being placed in the school improvement program (failing to make AYP two years in a row) were required to set aside 20 percent of their Title I allotment to fund transportation costs for students requesting transfers from failing schools, Nations said.
With that money (some $146,000) unavailable to be budgeted for the upcoming school year, the three schools opted to close their preschool classes and hire an additional classroom teacher, she said. Both Cullowhee Valley and Scotts Creek added fourth-grade teachers to reduce class size, and Fairview added a seventh-grade science teacher, since science will become part of the NCLB model in 2007, Nations said.
The school system will maintain pre-k classes at SMES and Blue Ridge, and parents who had made application to Fairview, Scotts Creek or Cullowhee Valley may apply to those schools, Nations said.
Other free pre-k options exist through the Region A Partnership for Children; information on those programs is available on page 8C.
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