State honors Emporia schools rapped by feds
By Bobbi Mlynar
Originally published 01:48 p.m., October 11, 2007
Updated 01:48 p.m., October 11, 2007
Two Emporia schools that failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress under No Child Left Behind measurements have won state Standard of Excellence awards for their students’ performance on the 2007 Kansas Mathematics and Reading Assessments.
Emporia Middle School will receive the Standard of Excellence for its scores in reading. Turning Point Learning Center also will receive the awards for reading in grades three, five, six and eight and for math in grades five, six and eight. EMS had failed to meet AYP in both math and reading because of lower scores recorded in subgroups. Turning Point failed to reach AYP because parents of some students refused to allow them to take the tests. Overall scores of all students, however, qualified for awards in the categories mentioned.
“I don’t like surprises on the board table but this is a good surprise,” Superintendent John Heim said before making the announcement at the end of the board of education meeting Wednesday night.
“This year, we had five schools recognized for Standard of Excellence in some form,” he said.
Other Standard of Excellence award winners are Timmerman Elementary, which met the standard in both math and reading; Walnut Elementary, for math; and Logan Avenue for third-grade math.
The list of awards was released Tuesday by the Kansas State Department of Education. To achieve a 2007 Standard of Excellent, the “all-students” groups at the schools had to achieve AYP.
Heim said that a goal of the District Improvement Plan is for all schools to be at the Standard of Excellence in both reading and math.
Kansas Assessment scores fall into five performance levels: exemplary, exceeds standard, meets standard, approaches standard, and academic warning, according to a news release distributed at the meeting.
“The Standard of Excellence honors indicate that achievement in the top three categories — exemplary, exceeds standards and meets standards — is strong,” the release said.