Marina questions process

Lauren Vane

Despite raising school-wide scores for the state-mandated academic

performance tests by 30 points, Huntington Beach’s Marina High School

will not be among those schools honored with the prestigious

California Distinguished School Award. All that stands in the way for

applying for the award is one point, and that leaves this local high

school questioning the state’s evaluation process.

“This is kind of a blow to the school, to the community, to

everybody,” Assistant Principal Kirk Kennedy said. “It’s just

disappointing that for one point, our students, our staff, our

community is not eligible for some prestigious recognition. That is

no indication that our school isn’t doing well.”

The Distinguished School Award is given every four years to

schools that demonstrate high achievement in a variety of areas. The

award is something Marina High School has worked toward for several

years, Kennedy said.

“It’s just simply recognition. It’s just recognition for effort

and achievement,” Kennedy said.

The community takes note of which schools are awarded the honor,

Kennedy said. According to the California Department of Education

website, about 5% of California schools are selected for the award

each year.

The school-wide Academic Performance Index score is not the only

means of decision for the award; schools are also evaluated on racial

and ethnic subgroups and on how well the students in those groups

perform. In order to be evaluated in a subgroup, the school must have

a significant amount of students in any one particular racial or

ethnic group, Kennedy said. Marina High School has five subgroups and

one of those -- the socio-economically disadvantaged subgroup --

missed the target goal by one point, making the school ineligible to

apply for the award.

“If they’re one short, they’re one short. You have to have a cut

off somewhere,” said Bob Bernstein, an administrator with the state

Department of Education’s educational planning information center.

Last year, this subgroup raised the testing score by 40 points,

exceeding the target growth by 38 points, Kennedy said.

“Overall, I think our student performance for this last year was

excellent,” he said.

The last time Marina High School won the recognition of a

California distinguished school was in 1988 and with this year’s high

API scores, the school was hopeful it would finally be its turn

again, Kennedy said. So when the final score results were released,

showing that the school was ineligible for the award because of a

single point, Kennedy said he decided to take a second look at the

scores.

Connie Mayhugh, director of curriculum instruction and assessment

with the Huntington Beach Union High School District, and Kennedy

discovered an error that could possibly explain the one point

deficit.

Two students, in two different grade levels, appeared in the test

results to have identical student identification numbers, causing

both students to be scored in two different grade levels, Mayhugh

said. But Marina High School will never know if the error they found

would have made a difference. The school district appealed to the

state to review the data, but the state denied the appeal, stating

that Marina High was not the only school this had happened to,

Mayhugh said.

“I think that’s an unfortunate situation,” Mayhugh said. “I’m not

sure if it would have made a difference. It’s just unfortunate they

wouldn’t support the school.”

The state released preliminary data projections in October,

indicating that Marina High School had met all the target goals and

would be eligible for the award, Kennedy said. Based on these

projections, Kennedy and his staff started working on the detailed

award application, Kennedy said.

“It’s quite a commitment on the part of the school to put the

application together thoughtfully and completely in order to be

considered for the program,” said Mary Gomes, a consultant with the

department of education.

The school was shocked when the final results indicated that they

had missed the target goal in one of their subgroups, leaving them

ineligible for the award. The state refused to read the award

application the staff had submitted, Kennedy said.

“What’s frustrating is that in a projected report early on, they

said we qualified,” Kennedy said.

According to Bernstein, the school district appealed too late with

the information about the scoring error with the two students.

“Depending on what the exact problem was with the data, they had

an opportunity to correct it,” Bernstein said.

Despite the validity of any concern about a discrepancy in scoring

errors, the department of education does not have the resources to

handle every inquiry, Bernstein said.

“We’re not really staffed to consider these appeals,” Bernstein

said. “It would be a big process if we did it, that’s why we don’t do

it.”