Four schools on federal list

Jeff Benson

Several Newport-Mesa schools will be kept under closer watch as part

of the No Child Left Behind Act after they made a list of campuses

that don’t meet federal marks for the second year in a row.

Estancia High School, Pomona Elementary School and Whittier

Elementary School all made the “Title I Program Improvement” list

Wednesday. Schools are placed there if they fail to meet one or more

objectives on the 2004 Adequate Yearly Progress Report, released in

August.

The three schools will implement more supplemental services and

additional after-school programs, district director of assessment

Peggy Anatol said.

“I think it helps us focus in on school needs,” Anatol said. “We

know there are populations of students who need additional attention.

We’ll begin to follow all the rules that are needed.”

Twelve of the district’s 31 campuses are Title I schools, which

entitles them to federal funding because of their low socioeconomic

levels, Anatol said. Only Title I schools are evaluated for the

Program Improvement report. Anatol said schools won’t lose their

funding because of year-two status but could lose it “sometime down

the line.”

TeWinkle Middle School was the only Newport-Mesa addition to this

year’s Program Improvement list. The school’s first-year status means

parents now have the option to transfer their kids out of the school

and that school officials must write a letter notifying the public

that it’s now a Program Improvement school.

“We’re looking to improve scores among all groups of kids,”

TeWinkle Principal Dan Diehl said. “Not all of our kids are meeting

the annual proficiency levels. There are certain subgroups, like

English learners and special education students. No Child Left Behind

requires students at every level to be proficient on state standards

tests in language arts and mathematics.”

Diehl said the school will look to improve through READ 180 and

Family Friendly Schools programs and by raising awareness of the arts

and school culture.

Wilson Elementary School met all of its targets and will remain a

year-one school. Program Improvement schools must meet all targets

for two years before they’re taken off the list altogether, Anatol

said.

Estancia High School Principal Tom Antal said his school is on the

list because it hasn’t met the Adequate Yearly Progress Report

participation requirement two years in a row.

“There were students in some of our special education classes who

exercised the option not to take [the 2003 California High School

Exit Exam], and there was no mechanism in the state to have them take

that,” Antal said. “Then in 2004, there was a little glitch in a

world history exam involving our 10th-grade students. Many had taken

the test in ninth grade. So the lack of participation drove down the

students who took the exam.”

Parents with children attending Program Improvement schools have

the option to enroll them in other schools within the district, she

said.

Members of the district staff are in the process of researching

three-year, scientifically based intervention programs to implement

at Estancia, Pomona and Whittier, she said.

Assistant Supt. of Secondary Education Jaime Castellanos said all

Newport-Mesa schools will present 15-minute school-improvement plans

to improve student achievement at a school board study session Nov.

16 and 17.

“[District officials have] been looking at the information, and

we’ll focus on the goals of the schools to get themselves working out

of that improvement status,” Castellanos said. “Whatever resources we

have -- whether inside or outside the district -- we’re going to use

them to make it a reality.”