Dear Neighbors,

The federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) requires schools, school districts, and states to ensure that all students make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in meeting state standards each school year. Each state sets their own standards, and sets the yearly targets for AYP. To make sure that no child's proficiency or lack thereof is hidden by school wide averages, each state must report student proficiency in various appropriate subgroups. Alaska has nine subgroups for which schools must report data: students who are Limited English Proficient, students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged, African-American, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian, Hispanic, and Caucasian.

Alaska's Accountability Plan requires that our schools must meet the following targets to meet AYP this year:

• 64.03% of students school wide and in each of the nine subgroups must be proficient in Language Arts
• 54.86% of students school wide and in each of the nine subgroups must be proficient in Math
• 95% of students school wide and in each of the nine subgroups must participate in the assessments
• Schools must have an 85% attendance rate or, if the school includes 12th grade, a 55.58% graduation rate.

All of these targets will increase incrementally until they are at 100% in the 2013-2014 School Year. In 2005, the targets will be raised to 70.03 percent in language arts and 62.83 percent in math. Test scores from the Benchmark Exams in grades 3,6 and 8; the HSGQE at grade 10; and the CAT-6 in grades 4,5,7 and 9 are used to determine AYP for each school.

More students in Senate District P met the required targets for proficiency in reading in math last school year than in the year before. Congratulations are due to each and every one of the students, parents, teachers, principals, and community partners who helped reach these goals. Well done!

During the 2003-2004 school year, the following schools in Senate District P made attained or surpassed the Adequate Yearly Progress targets for each of the nine subgroups and for the Participation Rate:

Bear Valley Elementary, Bowman Elementary*, Huffman Elementary, Girdwood School, Oceanview Elementary*, O'Malley Elementary, Rabbit Creek Elementary, Ravenwood Elementary

Chugiak High School and Service High School

Hope School and Whittier Community School

* Improved from last year, when students with disabilities did not meet the proficiency targets for Language Arts.

The following schools did an excellent job in many areas, but did not meet the proficiency targets in all areas. They are considered to be In Need of Improvement.

Goldenview Middle: Students with disabilities – language arts and math
Gruening Middle: Students with disabilities – participation rate, language arts and math
Hanshew Middle: Students with disabilities – language arts and math, Alaska Native students – math, and economically disadvantaged students – language arts
Family Part'p. Charter: School wide participation rate, School wide graduation rate, and Caucasian participation rate


AYP is a complex score, and it is vital that we dig deeply into the statistics to get a true picture of what is happening in our schools. Principals at all schools will be sharing their schools' data with parents, and those that didn't make AYP will work with parents and staff to develop improvement plans. Parents whose children attend these schools should contact their child's principal for specific information.

Information about Anchorage schools’ AYP scores is also available on the Anchorage School District website at http://www.asdk12.org/NCLB/AYP. Similar information about the Hope School is available at the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District's website at www.kpbsd.k12.ak.us/news. If you live in Whittier, you will need to contact your principal or superintendent directly for detailed information.

Even though I am retired from teaching, I am still committed to making sure each child in Alaska is well educated. So I'm very pleased at the successes achieved by all our Senate District P schools, and I will continue my work to ensure future success.



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