Midvale schools receive Adequate Yearly Progress ‘report cards’

Midvale schools are digesting their 2010 Adequate Yearly Progress reports that were released publicly in September for the federal mandate No Child Left Behind requirements.

Many factors come into play regarding a school passing AYP. “All our scores tell part of a story,” said Hal Sanderson, Canyons School District Director of Institutional Research and Assessment.

Midvale schools that didn’t pass AYP are: Copperview, East Midvale and Midvalley Elementary Schools; and Hillcrest High School.

Midvale Elementary and Midvale Middle School both passed AYP. NCLB data is based on the Criterion-Referenced Test, which students take each spring. AYP reports label each school with a passing grade only if the school succeeds in 40 categories, the main ones being math and language arts with subcategories based on ethnicity, English skills, income and disabilities.

Title 1 schools that don’t pass AYP two years in a row are put on a “school improvement list” and are required to work toward passing AYP. A school is designated Title 1 based on the number of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch.

Copperview Elementary is in a “school improvement” phase. For 2010 AYP, it passed the math but not the language arts category.

Chanci Loran is Copperview’s new principal. Sanderson said the move has nothing to do with the school’s AYP scores. However, he said, “We have a principal coming in with a fresh set of eyes to be able to look at programs and students and make any adjustments we need.”

Loran said her first step in “school improvement” was to form a school leadership team, with one teacher per grade level, joined by the school psychologist, administration, achievement coach, Canyons district representative and a parent.

The team will work with an outside consultant who will help the school through the improvement process, Loran said. “We have done some brainstorming and will be identifying in depth what our school’s needs are and how we can address those needs,” she said.

One thing the school will be doing is peer coaching, where different teachers observe one another and offer advice.

Further, teachers will have time for extended professional learning communities which is where the teachers learn how to boost usage of the best teaching practices.

“We’re working on a lot of really great programs,” Loran said. “We’re obviously planning to do better. We acknowledge there is room to improve.”

Midvale Elementary passed AYP with substantial gains in math and language arts. A new math curriculum was implemented last year. “They are on the right road and there are some good things to build on there,” Sanderson said.

East Midvale Elementary didn’t pass AYP in language arts but succeeded in math, as did Midvalley Elementary.

Midvale Middle passed AYP.

“We were excited to see a 12 percent increase in our Limited English Proficient Language Arts category and were generally pleased that in the majority of the 40 subcategories we saw increases in both Language Arts and Math,” said Midvale Middle Principal Paula Logan.

To foster continued growth at Midvale Middle, all teachers are developing and implementing a graphing, informational literacy, and vocabulary activity each quarter. The student will receive the specialized teaching in those three areas a minimum of 21 times during the school year, Logan said.

“We hope to continue to see growth on our AYP reports,” she said.

Hillcrest High School didn’t make AYP this year due to not passing in language arts. The school did pass in the math category, however.