Schools
Alternative Board Considered For Elsinore Middle School
The board would meet regularly and visit classrooms to try to help the low-performing school.
The Lake Elsinore Unified School District is looking into creation of an alternative governance board to meet regularly and determine how to help achieve federal accountability standards.
Elsinore Middle School has not met Adequate Yearly Progress achievement targets in back to back years. To meet the Adequate Yearly Progress targets, the school’s students must perform at or above proficiency level on statewide tests for grades 3-8.
All California schools and school districts receive annual results of the tests.
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Elsinore Middle School is the only school in the district to fall below targets set under the Adequate Yearly Progress program.
Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the district is required to intervene to improve the school’s performance. In addition, the governance and operation of the school must be revamped.
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Creating an alternative governance board is one way to do so.
Meeting on Thursday, the district board noted that Elsinore Middle School has made academic gains, but not enough to meet Adequate Yearly Progress targets.
The school has been in the Adequate Yearly Progress program since 2003-04.
Melissa Bazanos, Administrator for Riverside County Office of Education, said the alternative governance board could consist of administrators, teachers and parents. They would conduct school and classroom visitations and monitor implementation of recommended changes.
“The team would have the opportunity to see what’s going on at the school,” Bazanos said.
She said that creation of the board and the resulting recommendations would not be punitive. It would simply be a means of helping the school and its students achieve higher goals.
“And it would involve teachers and the board in the planning process,” Bazanos said.
District Superintendent Frank Passarella said that missing the Adequate Yearly Progress target for two years, doesn’t mean that the kids are unsuccessful. “They just didn’t meet AYP,” he said.
Passarella hopes to have an intervention program in place to help the middle school by the 2011-12 school year.
