With the accountability framework recently released for Washington state public schools, educators at Franklin Elementary School say they are prepared for the added pressure of meeting standards as a new Title 1 school.
“In the last few years we have been above standard in math and reading state requirements,” Principal Brian Moore said, “But there is a little more attention paid to Title 1 schools, and we are aware of that.”
The document draft was released from The Washington State Board of Education on December 1st with the title, “Draft Accountability Report, December 2009”. The document introduces new audit and school monitoring standards. The SBE’s Accountability framework includes a document emphasizing Washington state educators’ active plan to monitor and examine schools’ progress and identify schools in need of intervention as well as identifying exceptional schools deserving praise. The framework includes federal and state standards and records progress and a plan of action from schools, especially those receiving federal funds. This would include Title 1 schools like Franklin Elementary School that became school-wide Title 1 this year.
Moore said the school has in the past been monitored by the Adequate Yearly Progress report, part of the No Child Left Behind Act set forth by the Bush Administration. Moore said standards are the same for Title 1 schools, but Title 1 schools are the first to be looked at and closely monitored for student progress.
School district Superintendent Paul Strum said, “Public schools and public districts that receive federal funds are required to comply with the accountability laws and policies of both the federal government and their state government, currently being the No Child Left Behind Act.”
Moore said that since becoming school-wide Title 1 extra funds have provided a little more leisure for accountability processes. Moore said the funds help create more resources needed for helping students who are struggling in reading or math.
“We have been able to receive about $100,000 of extra funds, which has been huge in creating programs designed to help struggling students.” Moore said.
Title 1 is a Federal Education Program designed to provide funds for programs that specifically adhere to students struggling to meet state standards in subjects such as reading and math. There are two types of schools in Title 1, target-schools and school-wide. Target-schools receive funds for programs to help the students most-in-need of extra tutoring to meet state standards. However, school-wide Title 1 allows enough funds for all students to benefit from specialized programs, not just those who are considered below the standard. To become school-wide Title 1 requires at least 40% of students to be on free or reduced lunch.
Franklin Elementary is currently at 42% of students with free or reduced lunch, a number Moore said has gradually increased due to the inflation of population in areas of Pullman.
Moore said the Sunnyside area of Pullman has increased in new houses being built, subsequently building up the student body at Sunnyside Elementary School. Because of this more families located near college hill have had to switch to Franklin Elementary School.
“It’s not so much an increase in the poverty level, rather it’s a shift in the concentration of low-income students,” Moore said, “ Many families living on college hill are considered ‘temporarily low-income’, usually because the parents of these students are also college students, and now instead of these students being distributed between the elementary schools, they have all transferred here.”
The Title 1 program at FES is currently ran by Sue Schell, along with other para-professionals. Schell said part of the accountability is tracked by assessments made in the classroom for all Title 1 students.
“We usually do some sort of short weekly assessment, then we graph the results to track and monitor individual progress as well as school progress.” Schell said.
Schell said they are currently using a program called DIBELS, which apparently still has a few kinks to work out.
“Some of the grade-leveled assessments are tricky because one student will be above the grade-level and another student well below grade-level, it’s not a continuum of results, and the way the assessments are set up make it difficult to pinpoint where some students fall in progress.” Schell said.
Moore said when it comes time to be audited; the faculty at Franklin Elementary School is positive and proud of the student progress they have seen since becoming school-wide Title 1.
Sources:
Paul Sturm: psturm@psd267.wednet.edu
Brian Moore: 509-334-5641
Sue Schell: 509-334-5641
