Despite test-score improvements district-wide and at most individual schools this past school year, USD 457 Garden City likely will be shy of making the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the Board of Education heard Monday night.

"We were just that close," Assistant Superintendent Shelly Kiblinger said, adding that the shortfall was the result of performance by or drop-out of a small group of students. "It was like losing the state championship in football in triple overtime."

For individual schools, the district expects Garden City High School will miss AYP in reading and Kenneth Henderson in math. However, all other schools in the district are likely to reach the targets, which removes USD 457's two intermediate schools from the state "on improvement" list they landed on two years ago for missing AYP.

Requirements

To make AYP, schools and districts have to hit annually increasing targets set by the state for the percentage of students who have to pass state assessments. The targets apply both to the overall student body and to demographic subgroups of which a school or district has at least 30 students. Attendance and graduation rates also come into play.

The targets in reading were 75.6 percent of students making at least a "meets standard" score for third through eighth grade, and 72 percent for high school and overall.

For math, they were 73.4 percent for third through eighth grade and 64.6 percent for high school and overall.

Steve Nordby, USD 457 testing coordinator, said there are other ways for schools and districts to make AYP, too, if they are short of the targets. If they miss by a small amount, they could qualify for an exception that accounts for errors inherent in testing. And "safe harbor," allowed only when graduation and attendance requirements are met, is for schools that show a certain level of improvement over the previous year.

The score requirements are based on the Kansas State Assessments taken in the spring, the results of which haven't yet been released by the state. But Kiblinger said she and other administrators were reporting the district's results to the board because "we believe it to be our accurate numbers of what will come out."

District-wide performance

Overall, the school district's reading scores improved by 3.91 percent, with 78.22 percent of students making at least a "meets standard" score -- 6.22 percentage points above the target.

Math scores improved by 4.36 percent, with 81.66 percent of students reaching required scores -- 17.06 percentage points above the target.

Kiblinger said that was about even with the typical state average for score improvement, in spite of challenges she cited like higher percentages of low-income and English-as-a-Second-Language students.

"I think to be on par with what the state shows when we know we look very different from the rest of the state really speaks volumes," she said.

Yet the district didn't make AYP because of reading results in the special education subgroup. All subgroups have to meet the requirements for the district to make AYP.

The shortfall was partly because of a state rule on how many students can take alternative tests designed for students with special needs, Nordby said.

The state allows 1 percent of special-needs students to take an alternate exam and 2 percent to take a KAMM test more similar to the regular assessment, he said.

However, USD 457 staff thought the district had more students than that who qualified for the alternate assessments, so it gave the KAMM reading test to 132 students, 126 of whom passed. The district's cap was 68 students, so the other 50 had to be reported as artificially failing scores in terms of the district's AYP performance, Nordby said.

At a previous meeting, Nordby said USD 457's philosophy is to assign students the assessment most appropriate for their abilities, regardless of whether the number taking alternate or KAMM tests exceeds the cap for what can count toward AYP.

After reporting those as failing scores, USD 457 showed that 57.2 percent of special education students passed their tests -- too low to make AYP, administrators reported.

The subgroup could have qualified for safe harbor because of demonstrating improvement, except that Kiblinger said the graduation rate for special education students wasn't where it needed to be.

The state requires at least a 75-percent rate, and because four of the eight special education students starting their freshman year dropped out, the subgroup had a 50-percent rate, she said.

School-level data

The special education graduation rate affected GCHS, too.

In reading, the school improved overall performance by 2.73 percent, but still only 66.43 percent of students passed the reading assessments -- short of the 72-percent target -- when 12 passing scores were turned to failing because of the cap on KAMM exams.

The school couldn't rely on safe harbor because the graduation rates for special education and Hispanic subgroups were below the 75-percent target.

Because GCHS was short of AYP for the second year in a row, it will be placed on the state's "on improvement" list, which requires the school to write a plan for assisting in weak areas. Kiblinger said the plan would particularly address bettering those graduation rates.

GCHS made AYP and showed significant improvement in math, with 85.19 percent of students making at least a "meets standard" score -- up 17.99 percent from last year. Nordby attributed much of the success to work by math coaches, who work primarily with teachers to improve instruction, and to a class that specifically addresses tested items.

"They're doing something tremendously right in that department," he said.

Kenneth Henderson Middle School showed a slight decline in math scores, with 67.84 students passing the exam, compared to 68.2 percent last year.

"There just wasn't any growth," Nordby said in explaining how the school didn't make AYP in math. "The target moved, and they didn't."

Kiblinger said Kenneth Henderson has found room in the budget to hire a part-time math coach and implement other practices administrators think will help with test scores.

Scores at most other schools in USD 457 improved, administrators said, noting that not only did more students make at least "meets standard," but also that more moved into the highest "exceeds standard" and "exemplary" score levels in many cases.

They cited Alta Brown Elementary School as the school with the greatest growth. There, 80.33 students passed in reading, up 20.7 percent from last year, and 83.74 percent of students passed in math, up 7.2 percent from last year.

Other schools didn't have much room for improvement. For the second year in a row at Pierceville-Plymell Elementary School, 100 percent of students made at least "meets standard" in both reading and math.

Administrators reported that USD 457 anticipates receiving 29 Standard of Excellence awards from the state, based on factors including high levels of "exemplary" scores and a low percentage of students at the lowest score levels.

The improved results indicate something is working, Kiblinger said.

"(No Child Left Behind) has pushed us to do things we never thought were possible before," she said.