LCMS Identified as "Persistently Low-Achieving School"
by Sean Dunphy, Principal
January 15, 2010
Recently, the State of Iowa made the decision to apply for “Race to the Top” grant money from the federal government. The grant is intended as an educational reform effort for which all states have the opportunity to apply. It is funded with significant dollars, and is a competitive grant process.
While Iowa is submitting an application, our district (along with a significant number of the largest districts in Iowa) will not be participating at this time. Among the list of concerns the Lewis Central District has with the Race to the Top grant are:
- There are a number of requirements (strings attached), some of which may not even be identified or well-articulated yet.
- There are many unknowns concerning the amount of money awarded, the processes involved, and the options that we could pursue.
- The mandatory reform models contained in the Federal version of this school reform effort are simply not applicable to vast majority of Iowa schools.
- Grant approval would only provide access to an estimated $75K per year for Lewis Central.
- The entire planning process for this at the local level has been very short. Most of this information has come about within the last three days, and has only been known at the state level since December.
Along with the Iowa application, however, came the requirement that the state define for itself schools which are “Persistently Low-Achieving Schools”. In order for their grant to be submitted, those schools then had to be identified. Additionally, this identification was required in order for the state to access the final payment of the Federal Recovery Act funding that began last year.
As a result of that requirement, the Iowa Department of Education ranked schools by building for the first time ever. The formula was based on ITBS Reading and Math data for “ALL STUDENTS” over the three-year period from the Fall of 2006 to Spring of 2009. The comparison of school buildings based on the number of students who were proficient and the increase or decrease in the number who were proficient over those three years resulted in a final ranking. It is by that formula that Lewis Central Middle School was identified as a Persistently Low-Achieving School.
Please know that the sense of urgency this new label has created is significant! Plans are in place to make the needed improvements in achievement and we are confident that our plans are beginning to produce positive results. LCMS has been vigilant about student achievement data and purposeful with its planned improvement efforts for many years. Driven by No Child Left Behind, our building improvement plans (along with the plans in all other buildings at Lewis Central), individual teacher and administrator professional growth efforts, and district-wide efforts have and will continue to be directly and singularly focused on student achievement. The Board of Directors, administrators and teachers are heavily engaged all along in the selection of goals and plans.
Given the new designation as a Persistently Low-Achieving School, this entire process will now be ramped up and the Board and Staff will be engaging in deeper examination of improvements required. We are not responding to this news with “business as usual”. However, we are confident that our reform and improvement efforts will enable Lewis Central Middle School to move beyond this label and ensure the success of all of our students.
If you have further questions, please feel free to contact me via email at sdunphy@lewiscentral.k12.ia.us or at (712) 366-8251.
