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According to the latest state rankings under Indiana Public Law 221, three Wells County schools are on Academic Watch.
Southern Wells Junior/Senior High School, Norwell Middle School and Bluffton-Harrison Elementary School are in the Academic Watch category for failure to reach required state goals.
Indiana P.L. 221 is a comprehensive accountability system for K-12 education. It was passed by the Indiana General Assembly in 1999, before the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
To measure academic progress, P.L. 221 places Indiana schools into one of five categories based on student performance and improvement data from the state’s ISTEP+ assessments:
• Exemplary Progress
• Commendable Progress
• Academic Progress
• Academic Watch (priority)
• Academic Probation (high priority)
No Wells County school is on probation.
Due to the nature of the P.L. 221 program, schools who have made impressive academic achievement are often overlooked.
Ossian Elementary School increased its score 2.7 percent over last year to 81.9, which qualified them for Academic Progress status. Norwell High School scores slipped by .5 percent, yet they scored Commendable marks under P.L. 221.
The system has built in minimums: If your school scored 99 percent last year, but dropped 7 percent this year to 93, you get an Exemplary rating. By the same token, if your school goes from 93 percent to 99 percent, you still get an Exemplary. But go from a 70 percent to a 69 percent and your school will likely go on Watch.
Jon Bennett, past B-H Middle School principal and current Transportation Director, has been studying P.L. 221 for several years. He said the confusing system often leads people to misinterpret the data.
“Each year we have a new crop of students taking the test which can be challenging for the staff,” he said. ‘It’s not as if we’re testing different students every year. It’s just the same students we had last year in a different level.”
Bennett said B-H schools have been making steady academic progress and he expects that trend to continue.
“I don’t see any of our schools ever being on academic probation,” he said.
Michelle Clouser, Title I director at Norwell, said the work at Ossian deserves recognition though the school achieved the same ranking as last year.
“Lancaster obviously made some significant improvements over the year before, but Ossian increased their score by 2.7 percent,” she said. “That’s better than any school in our district.”
In fact, Ossian’s 2.7 percent increase beats everyone except B-H High School which increased 6.2 percent, moving from Commendable to Exemplary.
Wells County schools are certainly showing more improvement than many other districts around the state.
This year more Indiana schools slipped into academic watch and probation status, with two-thirds of school districts falling under the lowest two categories of the state’s five-tier ranking system.
On Wednesday, Indiana Department of Education released results that showed about 70 percent of public high schools, 64 percent of public middle schools and 35 percent of public elementary schools fell into the lowest two categories in 2008.
About a quarter of Indiana’s public schools fell into a lower category in 2008 than 2007.
Only schools in the lowest category of academic probation face consequences such as possible restructuring. Indiana had 138 public schools on probation in 2008, up from 127 a year before. Private schools and charter schools are exempt from the consequences.
jerryb@news-banner.com
Indiana PL 221
category rankings
Southern Wells
Community Schools
Southern Wells Elementary School — Commendable 83.7 (+0.7 vs. last year)
Southern Wells Junior-Senior High School — Watch 74.2 (-1.2 vs. last year)
Northern Wells
Community Schools
Ossian Elementary School — Academic Progress 81.9 (+2.7 vs. last year)
Lancaster Central School — Exemplary 83.4 (+1.8 vs. last year)
Norwell High School — Commendable 81.7 (-0.5 vs. last year)
Norwell Middle School — Watch 78.9 (-1.3 vs. last year)
Bluffton-Harrison
Metropolitan School District
Bluffton High School — Exemplary 78.9 (+6.2 vs. last year)
Bluffton-Harrison Middle School — Academic Progress 77.8 (+2.2 vs. last year)
Bluffton-Harrison Elem School — Watch 77.2 (-3.5 vs. last year)
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