Six Deer Valley Schools fail to meet federal standards
by Kathleen Stinson

DESERT FOOTHILLS – Six of the 36 schools in Deer Valley Unified School District failed to meet a yearly progress standard of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the district reported.

The schools that did not meet the standard are: Boulder Creek High School, Deer Valley High School, Deer Valley Middle School, Desert Sky Middle School, Esperanza Elementary School, and Mirage Elementary School.

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, all schools must set academic standards, have a high‑quality annual assessment such as the Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards test, and they must maintain an accountability system, said Dr. Vicki Edwards, director of assessment for the school district.

The Adequate Yearly Progress standard addresses the accountability portion of the federal requirement, Edwards said.

All six schools that failed did so for the same reason: They failed to submit AIMS scores for at least 95 percent of their students. A 95 percent participation rate is a recent requirement.

This year the federal government decided that schools cannot include the scores of learning disabled students who had special accommodations when taking the test, Edwards said. The new reporting requirement does not apply to all learning disabled students, only those who require more extensive accommodations.      

For example, even if 100 percent of the students take the test, if 6 percent of those need accommodation because of a learning disability, the government will not accept these students’ scores and that would leave the school with only a 94 percent participation.

Edwards said she did not know how many students in the district have learning disabilities and required special assistance for the AIMS test. Such accommodations may include providing calculators or having teachers read aloud portions of the test.

This new NCLB rule is not fair to students or schools, Edwards said. Schools in the district in the past had no trouble meeting the 95 percent participation requirement until this new rule was enacted.

As a result, some schools might be tempted to give the test to learning disabled students without making accommodations for them so they could include those students’ scores in the participation rate, she said. None of the Deer Valley schools would do that, she assured.

“These AYPs really don’t affect (our) kids whatsoever,” Edwards said. “Our schools do what’s right for the kids” and make accommodations for learning disabled students.

“No Child reauthorization is set for 2007. I’m hoping they will resolve some of these issues,” Edwards said.

Another change that the federal government made this year requires schools to include the scores of students who have had only one year of English Language instruction, she said. Before the federal government required scores from students who had three years of EL classes.

Tom Horne, the state superintendent of schools, recently filed a lawsuit objecting to this change in the law, she said.

Reach the reporter at kathleen@thedesertadvocate.com.