DERRY - While students enjoyed their break last week, teachers and administrators at West Running Brook Middle School worked on a plan to improve reading scores on state tests.
The school-improvement-plan team, comprised of teachers, school and district administrators, a parent and a facilitator, spent vacation week finishing up the report that's due to the state Department of Education by Wednesday, Superintendent Mary Ellen Hannon said. The group also will do a presentation for the School Board later this month.
The plan was required because West Running Brook was deemed a school in need of improvement, based on standardized test results required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
The education reform act requires schools to hit certain targets - called "adequate yearly progress" - in math and English across the school, and in subgroups such as special education.
The state designates a school in need of improvement when it does not make adequate yearly progress two years in a row in one or both subjects. West Running Brook missed making adequate yearly progress two years in a row in reading for the special education subgroup, Hannon said.
The school-improvement-plan team, comprised of teachers, school and district administrators, a parent and a facilitator, spent vacation week finishing up the report that's due to the state Department of Education by Wednesday, Superintendent Mary Ellen Hannon said. The group also will do a presentation for the School Board later this month.
The plan was required because West Running Brook was deemed a school in need of improvement, based on standardized test results required under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
The education reform act requires schools to hit certain targets - called "adequate yearly progress" - in math and English across the school, and in subgroups such as special education.
The state designates a school in need of improvement when it does not make adequate yearly progress two years in a row in one or both subjects. West Running Brook missed making adequate yearly progress two years in a row in reading for the special education subgroup, Hannon said.
Hannon said writing the plan can be demoralizing because the educators are working hard and wonder how they can work harder, she said.
"It looks like we don't know what we're doing, and that's so not true," Hannon added.
But it has its benefits.
Though the improvement plan is aimed at the school's special-education population, Hannon said, everyone can benefit because some students not identified as special education also did not make adequate yearly progress.
The improvement plan covers a variety of topics, such as communication with parents and school operations, she said.
This is the third plan a Derry school has written as part of the school-in-need-of-improvement process. Gilbert H. Hood Middle School and South Range Elementary School had to write similar plans a couple of years ago. Test scores improved last year as a result, Hannon said.
If both schools make adequate yearly progress based on last fall's exams, they will be able to drop the designation. Those results have not yet been released by the state.
