State grant helps high school improve scores

That's exactly what the staff at Antelope Valley High School did when their Academic Performance Index scores didn't meet state improvement guidelines last year.

School administrators applied for what's known as an immediate intervention/underperforming schools grant.

According to information from the State Department of Education, the grant allocates $168 per student. In Antelope Valley High School's case, this added up to $160,000 for the 2000-01 school year.

The Public School Accountability Act of 1999 provides some additional funding for schools that don't meet their target growth rates on the API.

The program is voluntary, and schools are funded after state administrators evaluate the applications, said Camille A. Smith, Educations and Programs consultant for the state.

Smith works in the state's networks division school reform assistance office.

School administrators' desire for state help in improving test scores is so widespread, Smith said, that 1,400 schools requested the grants last year. But only 450 were funded because of state budget constraints.

AV High School first received $50,000 to draw up a plan for improving their scores for the 1999-00 school year.

The school's API score was 545 in 1999. That rose to 556 in 2000 - just two points short of its projected growth target, explained Principal Mark Bryant.

To help increase student performance, school staff started what are known as "freshman houses," which group 75 ninth-graders in an intensive improvement program, Bryant said.

Each "house" shares three teachers, Bryant said. Those teachers work with parents to develop comprehensive lesson plans that emphasize the connection between all academic subjects.

Some of the school's high-achieving students are also being utilized as paid peer tutors, Bryant said.

The upward-bound mentoring program is the third part of the plan.

The mentoring program helps students who are at risk either due to excessive truancy, behavioral problems or because they are failing five or more classes, program coordinator Sam Vaiana said.

This three-pronged attempt to raise scores should produce some favorable results, Vaiana said.

"I think some of these kids who are underachieving on these tests will show some improvement if we give them some motivation," he said.

The school also has plans to add a student testing center where all incoming students will have their strengths and weaknesses assessed.

Ultimately, Bryant hopes students surpass the state's target for improved test performance. But more than that, he wants the new programs to create well-rounded students.

"The bottom line is we hope to see our API scores improve," Bryant said. "Some of these (programs) directly affect that and some of them indirectly affect that."

While their overall test scores didn't improve to their target growth rate, Bryant said the African-American and Hispanic subgroups both showed significant growth.

Uploaded January 8, 2001