FALLBROOK: Elementary school district facing sanctions

By TOM PFINGSTEN - Staff Writer | Tuesday, September 16, 2008 5:09 PM PDT ∞

FALLBROOK ---- The largest school district in the greater Fallbrook area faces government sanctions after several of its nine schools failed to meet a benchmark on standardized tests earlier this year, officials said Tuesday.

Among other problems, the Fallbrook Union Elementary School District failed to get at least 95 percent of its disabled students to take the standardized exams for two years in a row.

Districts can miss federal benchmarks for one year without consequences, but if the same failure occurs in back-to-back years, the government begins a regimen of sanctions known as "program improvement."

While test scores were also subpar for the first time this year, slipping on the participation goal for two consecutive years was what brought on the sanctions, said Educational Services Director Brian Jacobs.

"Even though there are 29 identifying factors, and we met (most of them), because we missed that one for two years, we are now a program improvement district," Jacobs said.

In the first year of program improvement, the district is required to notify parents that it is being sanctioned and revise its "local education agency" plan, which outlines teacher training and classroom techniques.

The third thing the district must do is reserve 10 percent of a certain fund it receives from the federal government, known as "Title I," for staff development.

"That's not an issue for us," he said. "It's not going to affect dollars flowing to schools."

If the district does not improve its adequate yearly progress results next year, it could face another round of sanctions, which increase in severity each year.

Jacobs said it is going to be increasingly difficult to keep up with the standards of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which called for 35 percent of all students to be proficient in English and 37 percent in math this year.

The district's English learners failed to meet those goals in 2008, and as the standards continue to rise, test scores will prove to be more of a challenge, potentially pushing the district into subsequent years of program improvement, Jacobs said.

While scores are the major focus of each spring's standardized exams, the government also looks at participation rates. At least 95 percent of a district's students must take the tests.

Jacobs said 94 percent of the district's 500 disabled students took the English portion of the tests, and 91 percent took the math portion.

"There could be multiple reasons" why fewer than 95 percent participated, he said. "It could be that the student didn't answer enough questions to qualify with a valid score, or that they didn't show up on the day of testing."

The district serves 5,500 students and runs the town's only junior high school, along with five other campuses in Fallbrook and two on Camp Pendleton.

Under No Child Left Behind, school districts nationwide are required to make "Adequate Yearly Progress" in several areas, such as English and math.

The results are broken down by subgroups, including various ethnicities and brackets for low-income, disabled and English learner students ---- the last three of which are particularly important.

If any of those groups misses the goal in English or math, or if fewer than 95 percent show up to be tested, the school ---- and in some cases the entire district ---- may be placed in program improvement, which brings a variety of punitive measures.

Next year, the test score requirements get tougher, jumping to 46 percent in English and 48 percent in math. By 2014, schools nationwide will be required to have 100 percent of their students passing the exams ---- a goal that many educators view as unrealistic.

"When you look at our scores this year in our Asian population, they're scoring 81 percent," Jacobs said. "Well, by 2014, that needs to be 100 percent."

With that in mind, the district must continue to improve how its teachers teach and how quickly its students learn, he said.

Over the last two years, officials have instituted more teacher training to help instructors process the government standards so they can teach students what they need to know to pass the tests.

"But those percentages, for any school district, are going to be a real challenge," he said.

Contact staff writer Tom Pfingsten at (760) 740-3516 or tpfingsten@nctimes.com.