CCSD#2 versus federal mandates

“I’m pretty sure we’re not going to make AYP (adequate yearly progress),” Carbon County School District No. 2 (CCSD#2) Jim Copeland said of the district’s general failure to make AYP.

This is less of a problem with the actual schools, according to test scores that are mostly above the state averages, but rather with inconsistencies between the Wyoming Department of Education (WDE) and the U.S.Department of Education.

Dicky Shanor, WDE Chief of Staff, explained that the waivers that free most states from the binding and unrealistic goals of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) don’t exist in Wyoming in addition to six other states. Shanor explained that the two informal attempts made to get a waiver, beginning in 2013, were turned down by the federal government because of issues with teacher accountability systems and the way that Wyoming calculated their graduation rate. Presently, according to Shanor, NCLB is being reauthorized at the federal level and the state is waiting to see that progression before they continue making waiver attempts.

The most recent attempt was formal, and it was turned down because WDE wanted to test every other year rather than every year because of concerns of over-testing. Copeland echoed these concerns, referring to a figure that indicated 61 percent of parents were similarly bothered.

Presently, Copeland is in the process of learning if secondary schools will be affected by AYP standards in addition to elementary schools, but his guess is that it is currently limited to elementary. According to Copeland, the first year that a school fails to make AYP is mostly free of consequences.

Encampment will likely be in their warning year, according to predictions made by Copeland. This means that students at Saratoga, who would be in their second year of failing to make AYP, would have the option to attend Encampment. The second year, Copeland said, is when the schools and communities start to notice the repercussions, like providing transportation to schools in better AYP standing.

Copeland explained that he is still in the process of understanding exactly how much transportation they will have to provide, based on whether Saratoga students would have the option to attend Medicine Bow or Elk Mountain. Copeland said that last year, approximately 117 schools and 16 districts in Wyoming went into the AYP warning year because it was the first year that 100 percent passing on Proficiency Assessments for Wyoming Students (PAWS) was required. Without the waiver, Copeland said, the only schools that will make AYP will be the very small schools that have different calculations and formulas for determining passing rate or Safe Harbor schools. Safe Harbor schools are schools that reached a 10 percent reduction in students that score below proficient.

“It’s crazy for Encampment not to make it,” Copeland said of their likely warning year. “Encampment has the number one ACT score averages in the state for two years in a row for their 11th graders. They’re exceeding at every measure as far as the state accountability, but yet we’re going to say they didn’t make AYP and they’re going to go into a warning year.” A school like Encampment, Copeland explained, that performs near the top of the state often will still be targeted as a school that does not make AYP because they did not reduce the number of students that scored basic or below basic by 10 percent.

“The 100 percent requirement is a great goal, and it’s all of our goal, but as a requirement, it’s not very realistic,” Copeland said.

CCSD#2 will begin with sending letters home to parents about the school status for at least Saratoga Elementary and Hanna Elementary and offer the choice for parents to send their students to another school that is either in its warning year or Safe Harbor, according to Copeland. Copeland said that between Saratoga and Encampment, this may be fairly insignificant considering that transportation between both schools is already available. According to Copeland, the schools Elk Mountain and Medicine Bow may struggle taking new students because of the way that the multi-grade classrooms and teaching methods are set up. “It doesn’t make a lot of educational sense,” Copeland said.

CCSD#2 will have to set aside 20 percent of their Title I funding, a federal grant, to cover these potential transportation costs. Whether they need this funding or not, it can not be accessed for other funding reasons. Another 10 percent of funding will be set aside for professional development of staff at affected campuses. The mandatory school improvement plan, which Copeland said they do each year anyway, will have to focus on areas that have been pinpointed as below proficient—both in subjects and groups of students based on factors including race and gender, IEP (individualized education plan) status and free/reduced lunch students.

“I just hate the fact that we have to send out letters acting like we’re failing as a school when I don’t believe we are,” Copeland said. “I don’t think the data supports that.”