Area schools get mixed progress reports

Progress reports for school districts show Kootenai County schools meeting all standards, but rural districts such as Plummer-Worley are falling behind.

Just two regular schools in the county failed to meet the “adequate yearly progress” mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind law – Bryan Elementary School and Lakes Middle School, with each school failing to meet reading standards.

Bryan didn’t meet the qualifications for poor students; Lakes didn’t meet the standards for special education students. Alternative schools Project CdA and Mountain View also didn’t meet necessary standards.

All schools in the Lakeland and Post Falls districts met standards. Post Falls had four schools on alert status after last year’s result, but student proficiency increased by the required minimum of 10 percent at each school and no school is considered at risk anymore, said Barney Brewton, the district’s director of elementary programs.

“We were very pleased,” Brewton said. “We made a lot of progress.”

But the Kellogg, Wallace, St. Maries, Plummer-Worley and West Bonner districts all failed to meet the standards and face sanctions if they don’t improve.

The problem area in most of the districts was reading. No Child Left Behind tracks student achievement for each race and for special education students as well as low-income students. Special education students in the St. Maries, West Bonner, Kellogg and Wallace all failed to meet standards in reading. Plummer-Worley’s low-income students didn’t meet standards for language usage.

The Plummer-Worley district is now in its fifth year of not meeting state standards in reading and will be required to draft a plan, which could include school closures and teacher replacements, if improvement is not made next year. But Lakeside Elementary School met state standards, and Lakeside High School and Lakeside Middle School showed progress, Superintendent George Olsen said.

“We’re going to be celebrating those things,” he said. “And if the federal government doesn’t like it, well, too bad.”

The state Department of Education reported good news overall, with the number of schools and districts not meeting standards decreasing over last year. Sixty-six percent of the state’s 620 schools met standards this year, compared with 57 percent last year.