A Plan for Struggling and Accelerated Students

By Jayne Chaffin

As parents, we all want to know that our children are getting an excellent education yet - 20% of the students in our school district are below the state and federal requirement level of "proficient" based on their most recent STAR tests.

In my research about our schools, I've also been surprised to learn that despite our schools' great API scores, some of our schools just don't compare well to similiar schools in California with comparable demographics and parent education levels. In fact, our schools together only rank a 6 on a 10-point scale (10 is best).

The chart below shows by school how each of our six schools has performed based on data obtained from these two websites: http://star.cde.ca.gov/star2004 and http://www.greatschools.net.

Del Mar Union School District
Comparative STAR Data By School 2004

	STAR	STAR			Similar
School	English	MATH	API	API	School
	% Not	% Not	Score	Rank	Rank
	Passed	Passed
--------------	-------	------	------	------	--------
Torrey Hills	12	15	942	10	10
Sage Canyon	17	11	939	10	9
Ashley Falls	18	15	932	10	6
Carmel DMMar	23	21	901	10	4
DM Heights	21	20	907	10	4
DM Hills	28	28	897	10	5
--------------	-------	------	------	------	--------
All DMUSD	20%	19%	922	10	6

I'm not saying our schools aren't excellent. I'm just saying there's still room for improvement and that this improvement will significantly impact the 913 students who are struggling to pass the STAR and meet their grade level curriculum standards.

As a new board member how would I address it? I'd seek support from my fellow board members to make it one of our top three strategic planning issues that we address without delay. I'd want our educators to use their collaborative Wednesday time to dig into the data, examine the test scores carefully, interview experts and draft a plan for each grade level at each school site that addresses struggling as well as accelerated students.

For the struggling students, I'd want our educators to identify the causes and proposed remedies based on objective research - we'd be on the leading edge and that's a good thing. I'd then want our educators to identify changes needed in the proposed curriculum, the schedule of the school day, textbooks, homework, tutoring, and any other resources or changes they feel they need. Then the Board should submit it to a broad-based community input process as I've described as part of my call for a revised strategic planning process. This plan must have timelines, measurable benchmarks and accountabilities for me to adopt it as a board member.

I'll work hard to champion this challenge with innovative new programs, like after-school, weekend and summer tutoring and mentoring programs that are tailored to the individual needs of our students. I'll be a clear voice for a strategic plan with solutions to close these achievement gaps and achieve success for all our students.

My vision is a future where all children receive world-class educations from schools with satisfied educators and parents working together to improve student achievement through differentiated instructional strategies, individualized learning programs and support from the local community. I see our schools as the models that others will emulate across our nation as we work together to address our struggling and accelerated students.

About Their Letter to the Editor of the Carmel Valley Newspaper October 15, 2004.....

In their Oct. 15th Letter to the Editor of the Carmel Valley Newspaper, current school board members Janet Lamborghini and Linda Crawford wrote that my statement "20% of students in our school district recently scored below the required level" shows a lack of knowledge on my part and that "the community shouldn't rush to judgment on a complex issue." Actually they never disagreed with the 20% number.

While they claimed that "standardized test results have improved steadily during the past five years," they don't offer any data to support their claim. The fact is, the 20% is unchanged from the year before and our academic scores only improved by 1 % in the entire school district.

But this isn't a question of data + this is a question about why these 913 children aren't important enough for these two incumbent school board members to offer a plan to help them + instead they point at the 80% of the children and say our schools are doing great for them. All they say is we should get there by 2013-2014. But I say that these 913 students will be out of high school by then and can't afford the complacency of board members who have given up on them. We need a plan of action and we need board members who care enough to get it done.

How's Your School Doing?

I've summarized the data from the two websites shown above by each of our schools.

• At Torrey Hills School, these numbers are the best in our district. In English 12% and in Math 15% of the students scored below the proficient level. Also, the school's Similar Schools Rank is 10 out of 10 (the best).

• At Sage Canyon School, these numbers are somewhat better than the district overall. In English 17% and in Math 11% of the students scored below the proficient level. Also, the school's Similar Schools Rank is 9 out of 10.

• At Ashley Falls School, these numbers are a little better than the district overall. In English 18% and in Math 15% of the students scored below the proficient level. However, the school's Similar Schools Rank is 6 out of 10.

• At Carmel Del Mar School, these numbers are somewhat worse than the district overall. In English 23% and in Math 21% scored below the proficient level. Also, the school's Similar Schools Rank is 4 out of 10.

• At Del Mar Heights School, these numbers are about the same compared to the district overall. In English 21% and in Math 20% scored below the proficient level. However, the school's Similar Schools Rank is 4 out of 10.

• At Del Mar Hills School, these numbers are much worse compared to the district overall. In English 28% and in Math 28% of the students scored below the proficient level. Also, the school's Similar Schools Rank is 5 out of 10.