School District 51 met 86.2 percent of its Adequate Yearly Progress targets for the 2008-2009 school year, although that was still short of what is required in Colorado. The results mean the district is in its fourth year of corrective action for math and its second year of corrective action for reading.
The Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, results also showed the district did make a 5.9 percent improvement in meeting targets.
District 51 as a whole has never made adequate yearly progress, but some of its schools have, including 16 for 2008-2009: Appleton, Broadway, Gateway, Lincoln Orchard Mesa, Loma, Mesa View, New Emerson, Orchard Avenue, Pear Park, Pomona, Scenic, Taylor, Thunder Mountain and Tope elementary schools; West Middle School; and all grades of the Mesa Valley Vision School.
The district’s record is 2006-07, when 33 District 51 schools made adequate yearly progress.
AYP measures student success through math and reading results from Colorado Student Assessment Program and other standardized test scores, through test participation and how well students improve from year to year, plus graduation rates.
Target levels increase every three years. The most recent level increase came in 2008. All school districts in the nation are expected to meet AYP targets by the 2013-14 school year.
If a school does not make adequate yearly progress, as defined by the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, for four years in a row, schools and districts are asked to take “corrective action.” That means receiving technical assistance, allowing students to pick which public schools they want to attend and offering supplemental educational services. And it could entail replacing teachers and principals who contribute to AYP failure; extending the school year or school day; implementing a new curriculum; decreasing school management’s authority; restructuring school organization; or having experts perform an external review and offer advice to the school.
In Colorado, 56 school districts including District 51 are taking corrective action to meet AYP expectations.
Eighty-four of the 184 public and special school districts in Colorado met every AYP target for 2008-2009. One hundred forty-nine school districts exceeded District 51’s success rate for meeting targets.
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