Performance: Low-performing schools toiling to get off needs-improvement list

Today, as Utahns learn which schools are named on the list of schools deemed in need of improvement as a result of poor performance on government-required exams, a team of administrators and specialists in Ogden are brainstorming ways to help Dee Elementary, which has been on the list for three years.

Mathematics has been the weakness at the Ogden District school, and last week the team visited the school to collect test score data and interview students, parents and employees.

"And then we meet back with the school, I think it is on Wednesday, to give them feedback, and from that feedback they write (an improvement) plan," Ogden School District's federal programs director, Rich Moore.

Thirteen schools are on the needs-improvement list this year as a result of not meeting No Child Left Behind test score criteria, also called Adequate Yearly Progress.

Last year, 12 schools were on the needs-improvement list.

The increase could be chalked up to new, higher scores schools had to achieve this year to make AYP.

"Are the number of schools going to increase? Yes ... as the targets go up" every other year, state associate superintendent Judy Park said. "In two years, the numbers (in school improvement) will really increase again as those targets go up."

The only schools sanctioned are those that receive Title I funding from the federal government for educating a student body that is at least 40 percent of economically disadvantaged.

Schools on the improvement list for two or more consecutive years face sanctions — ranging from a requirement to hire tutors to the state assuming the school's day-to-day operations.

However, a state law prohibits a school takeover from a local district unless approved by the Legislature. And that has yet to happen at Roosevelt's West Middle School.

West Middle School's standardized test scores for the 2006-07 school year have placed it again on the school improvement list — for the seventh year.

While it takes two consecutive years for sanctions to kick in, it also takes two consecutive years of good test scores until a school is removed from the improvement list.

Lynn Elementary, also in Ogden, is hoping this year will be its last on the improvement list, thanks to improved good scores in math and language arts.