Making progress personal

Teachers at Hayden Lake Elementary took parenting classes alongside students’ parents.

They read a book called “Understanding Poverty” to get some insight into students’ backgrounds. Teachers at the school call parents at least once a month to touch base, even if there’s no good news or bad news to share.

Principal Kathy Kuntz said she thinks efforts the school’s teachers have made to connect with the students and their parents have paid off. Although the school has a higher percentage of poor students than most schools in the Coeur d’Alene district, test scores are on the upswing.

The school was one of 74 statewide recognized last week by the state Board of Education with an Additional Yearly Growth award. Schools with a 10 percent or higher increase in the number of students scoring proficient or advanced on the Idaho Standards Achievement Test receive the award.

Hayden Lake Elementary had 23 percent more students pass the ISAT’s reading test and nearly 18 percent more students pass the ISAT math test. Twelve other North Idaho schools are also on the list of schools making Additional Yearly Growth.

The state Board of Education also recognized 15 Idaho schools with Distinguished Schools Awards. Those schools, including four from North Idaho, were among the top 5 percent of schools that showed a reduction in the gap between economically challenged and non-economically disadvantaged students.

Woodland Middle School was named a Distinguished School for closing the gap in reading and math. Other Distinguished Schools include Valley View Elementary in Boundary County, Prairie View Elementary in Post Falls and Priest River Elementary.

Only Woodland and one other school in the state were recognized as Distinguished Schools in both reading and math subject areas. Woodland also was recognized for Additional Yearly Growth in math.

The new awards amount to a certificate and pat on the back from the state, but local school officials said the kudos will offer some satisfaction to the teachers who have worked to boost student test scores.

Coeur d’Alene Superintendent Harry Amend said that each year when the ISAT scores are released, there’s always a focus on the schools that fall short of the state’s ISAT goals or federal requirements under the No Child Left Behind education law.

“It’s very positive that the state board had decided to recognize schools that have done an extraordinary job in closing the achievement gap,” Amend said. “For a middle school with over 800 students, such as Woodland, with the tremendous economic diversity present in that student body, to be recognized on all three lists is a truly remarkable accomplishment.”

Amend said Hayden Lake Elementary is in the top three Coeur d’Alene elementary schools for the number of students on free and reduced lunch – a measure of poverty.

“When you combine over half of the students on free and reduced lunch with that type of improvement, that is stunning,” Amend said. “It’s a tribute to these teams. They’re just out there working, figuring out how to teach kids.”

Lakeland Assistant Superintendent Ron Schmidt said the awards reinforce the hard work that’s being done at the schools.

“It’s appreciated,” he said. “Plain and simple.”

Post Falls Superintendent Jerry Keane said the one school in his district that showed the most growth wasn’t recognized by the state Board of Education. Though Post Falls Middle School’s scores “grew huge amounts,” Keane said the school wasn’t labeled as Distinguished or recognized for making Additional Yearly Growth.

Even though the middle school had greatly improved scores on the ISAT, the school didn’t meet the state’s benchmark or goals on the ISAT. Schools that miss that mark aren’t eligible for the awards.

Keane said he’d rather see schools recognized for growth and improvement toward the state’s goals instead of being measured against the state’s benchmark.

Hayden Lake’s Kuntz said the improved test scores at the school resulted from parents and teachers working as a team. The willingness of students also helped, she said.

Teachers took a note card with each student’s ISAT score and met with each student. They asked the students how much they thought they could improve on the next round of testing.

“We said, ‘Where do you think you’re going to score this year? What’s a realistic goal for you?’ ” Kuntz said. “That might have made a difference. It brought it right down to their level. It wasn’t just a number. We kind of challenged them to meet their goal.”