All local schools now meeting No Child Left Behind guidelines
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The achievement has put Warren County High School on a NCLB celebration list issued by the state.
The high school was one of 76 Tennessee schools which demonstrated marked improvement for two consecutive years and has come off the list of high priority schools needing improvement, according to Tennessee?s 2006 AYP results.
Under No Child Left Behind, schools and school districts are measured on whether students meet performance benchmarks in math, reading and attendance for grades 3-8, and math, English and graduation rate for high schools.
Schools that do not meet the achievement standards for two years are deemed high priority. The number of high priority schools in Tennessee is down to 96 schools this year compared to 159 schools in 2005.
The high school was the only Warren County school currently on the list, according to Cox, who said the whole system had been on it at one point because they had problems at both the elementary and high school levels. The rest of the system made improvements and came off the list previously, leaving only the high school.
?You have to fail two years in a row to go on the list,? Cox said, ?and you have to make adequate yearly progress two years in a row to come off.?
Cox says the change in standing is important because it removes sanctions imposed by the federal government, which directs how federal money is spent when a school system goes on notice.
?It?s a big thing because we don?t have to move around federal money,? Cox said. ?So it gives us a little more flexibility. Plus, it?s a good thing for the system to know our students are making progress.?
According to Cox, the system has been performing well overall, and has shown major improvements in areas like math and reading proficiencies, and should receive a good report card from the state this year, as measured by Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) and Gateway exams.
Cox says much of the credit goes to the teachers, who have learned to use information made available by the school system to make their instruction methods more effective.
?We try to use data in a productive manner,? Cox said. ?So that we know what our students need and we don?t overlap the instruction. We try to push them each year to excel.?
The school system also has to pay attention to ancillary criteria like attendance.
?For elementary school you have to meet a 93 percent attendance rate to meet AYP,? Cox said. ?So if you make the grade the grade in academics, if you don?t have the attendance rate, you fail. On test days, you have to have 95 percent of students take the test, or you?re in trouble. So if any one of those things goes awry, then you fail.?
Graduation rate at the high school is also a measure of performance required by AYP.
?Our graduation rate for the regular diploma is right at 90 percent now,? Cox said.