School district may appeal TEA rating
Effort to mainstream special-ed students drops rating a notch
BY DAN PARKER SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

Port Aransas Independent School District Superintendent Billy Wiggins said he is exploring the possibility of filing an appeal of the state's recent rating of PAISD as an academically "acceptable" district.

On Aug. 1, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) released new ratings of school districts throughout the state based on 2006-07 TAKS testing. TAKS is the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills - state-mandated testing that is done to comply with the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Depending on how students perform on TAKS tests, the TEA assigns public schools all over the state varying statuses, from academically unacceptable on up to acceptable, recognized and, at the top of the scale, exemplary. When schools are rated unacceptable two years in a row, it can lead to a maximum consequence of the state taking over a campus and firing administrators and teachers.

PAISD officials said they were surprised to learn that the TEA rated the district acceptable for the 2006-07 school year - a drop from the district's 2005-06 rating of recognized. The drop came despite the fact that the TEA rated each of PAISD's three campuses as recognized or higher based on the 2006-07 testing.

The TEA rated H.G. Olsen Elementary School as recognized - a one-step drop from the exemplary status the school achieved the previous year.

While Brundrett Middle School had a recognized status during the 2005- 06 year, the school earned exemplary status for this most recent round of testing. BMS is the only middle school in Nueces County to achieve the topranked status of exemplary this year, according to the TEA.

Port Aransas High School is rated as recognized - the same ranking the school held for the 2005-06 school year.

Wiggins said the state hit PAISD as a whole with the rating of merely acceptable because of a lower-thanexpected performance by the district's special-education students who took a test known as the SDAA II -- the State-Developed Alternative Assessment. The SDAA II is designed for special-education students who don't take the more difficult TAKS test due to learning disabilities.

Ironically, the low performances came as a result of efforts by PAISD to bring the performances of special- education students up to par with regular students the same age, Wiggins said. In some cases, he said, that has resulted in school officials administering tests that were too difficult for some special-education students.

"We were trying to raise expectations," Wiggins said. "And, very honestly, I think we raised them a little high for some kids."

There are three different levels of SDAA II tests for each grade. Specialeducation students might be assigned to take one of those tests or possibly SDAA II tests for grade levels below the grade level where a student normally would be at that age.

Some special-education students didn't take SDAA II tests but have been assigned to take TAKS tests that are designed for students in lower grades. Still other special-education students at PAISD this past year, with the help of educators and parents, have raised their performance levels high enough to take and pass the same TAKS tests that their peers were taking.

PAISD administered 118 SDAA II tests during the 2005-06 school year. (That doesn't mean 118 students took the tests. It means only that 118 tests were taken. Students generally take one to three tests each.) Yet, only 50 SDAA II tests were given throughout the district during the 2006-07 school year, Wiggins said.

Fewer students were taking the SDAA II tests last year because PAISD was making a concerted effort to help special-education students catch up with their peers, to take the more difficult TAKS tests that their classmates were taking, and many of them did well on the TAKS, Wiggins said. That is a hidden victory that PAISD experienced in state-mandated testing last year, he said.

But too many students did not perform to expectations on the SDAA II tests, and PAISD's rating was lowered to acceptable based on that, Wiggins said.

However, the state didn't give PAISD credit for getting so many special-education students to a point where they were passing the same TAKS tests their peers were taking. That's the basis for a possible appeal of the district's acceptable rating, Wiggins said. The state doesn't measure the progress of special-education students who have begun passing at-grade-level TAKS tests, he said.

The special-education students who were moved away from the SDAA II tests and into TAKS testing would have vastly improved the overall results of the SDAA II test scores for the district if they had continued to take the SDAA II tests, Wiggins said.

But just because a student didn't perform as well as hoped on the SDAA II tests doesn't mean the student hasn't been learning. Wiggins said he believes that, when a hard look is given to specific SDAA II test results, evidence of real progress will be seen even among the students who didn't score highly.

Decisions on what tests students take have been made by what are known as ARDs - Admission Review and Dismissal committees. The committees are made up of teachers, principals and parents. The committees examine each individual student's situation before making decisions on what tests best suit those students' abilities.

To do a better job of deciding what kinds of tests are most appropriate for special-education students, Port Aransas schools in the coming school year will begin benchmark testing of the students to get more objective assessments of student abilities, Wiggins said. ARDs still will make the final decisions on what tests the students should take and can use the benchmark testing as a tool for making that decision, Wiggins said.

Wiggins said he will ask the principals of all three PAISD campuses to put together plans for how else local schools can address testing of special-education students.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act means school districts can be penalized if too many students are not taking atgrade level TAKS tests. Penalties would begin with districts being forced to put together teams to create specific progress plans. More severe penalties could follow. But it's only when a school's rating drops to the unacceptable level that those kinds of penalties start kicking in.

On an odd note: While BMS was the most highly rated PAISD campus during the 2006-07 year, the school also had the biggest percentage of specialeducation students who did not perform up to expectations in SDAA II testing, Wiggins said.

The performance of those specialeducation students didn't affect the BMS rating because fewer than 50 SDAA II tests were taken at the school, Wiggins said. According to state standards, at least 50 SDAA II tests would have had to be taken at BMS in order for the results to be taken into account by state authorities calculating a rating for the school, Wiggins said.

The fact that BMS was the only middle school in Nueces County to get an exemplary rating means that not one middle school in the Corpus Christi, Flour Bluff, Tuloso-Midway or West Oso independent school districts were ranked as exemplary.

Exemplary status did go to the school in London, but it's a school that goes from kindergarten through eighth grade, so it is not a middle school, per se. Also earning exemplary status was Seashore Learning Center, a charter school on Padre Island. But that school also is composed of students from kindergarten through eighth grade and, like London, it was given a ranking for its overall student population, not just for the students who are at the middle school level.

Among highlights of the TAKS scores at BMS: One hundred percent of seventh graders passed the writing portion of the TAKS. In each class, at least 90 percent of the students in the sixth, seventh and eighth grade passed the TAKS reading test.

BMS Principal Bob Byrd said a combination of factors are responsible for BMS getting an exemplary rating. Those factors include strong teachers, good support from parents and the school board.

"To me, it's a very comprehensive thing," said Byrd, who served his first year as principal at BMS in the 2006- 07 school year. "It's everybody who pitches in."

While Byrd bears some responsibility for the exemplary ranking, he said the school's previous principal, Travis Longanecker, also deserves credit. Longanecker was principal of BMS for two years before taking over as principal of Port Aransas High School in the 2006-07 school year.

One of the biggest things BMS has going for it is a low student-teacher ratio of about 12-1, Byrd said. That allows teachers to give students more one-onone attention. It also gives staff more time to work together to decide how best to help students learn, Byrd said.

"I'm a big fan of low student-to-teacher ratios," Byrd said. "So many public schools have hard-working teachers, and they fly at it as hard as they can, but when you have ratios of 20 and 30 to one, you just can't be as effective."

Part of the reason for H.G. Olsen Elementary School's drop from exemplary to recognized had to do with specialeducation students who had trouble with more advanced testing than they were used to, PAISD officials said.

But there were plenty of positives in Olsen's test scores too. One hundred percent of fifth graders passed the math portion of the TAKS. All 32 third graders who took the TAKS passed the reading portion.

While PAHS received the same recognized rating as it did the previous school year, the students actually did better on the most recent round of testing overall, according to Longanecker.

Longanecker said he was proud of strides made by economically disadvantaged students at PAHS. About 20 percent of the approximately 180 students enrolled at PAHS. Teachers focused strongly on them last year and got good results, Longanecker said.

In this most recent round of testing, PAHS saw a 23 percent increase in the number of economically disadvantaged students who met the minimum state standard for math. There was an 8 percent increase in the number of students overall who met those standards.

Overall, test scores went up for students at all levels in every subject area except for social studies, which saw a downturn of only 1 percent.

Some overall district-wide results of the 2006-07 TAKS testing at PAISD:

- Academic performances in all subjects scored in the recognized or exemplary levels.

- PAISD scored an 88 in math - four points higher than last year - and an 87 in science. Scores of 90 would have taken the district to the exemplary level in those subjects.

- The district scored a 93 in reading and English-language arts and a 92 in writing.

- PAISD got its top score of 94 in social studies.

"I am very, very excited about student growth, overall," Wiggins said. "We have done so many things academically to improve student performance."