School Report Cards Almost all A's in Oakland Township

All three districts serving Oakland Township – , Lake Orion and Romeo community schools – showed overall Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in in math and reading during the 2010-11 school year. The AYP report card was released this morning for all Michigan schools.

All the elementary and middle schools serving the township received an "A" grade on its AYP report card, which looks at schools' progress in several areas, including MEAP scores in math and reading, attendance records and graduation rates. 

and high schools also received "A" grades, and Romeo High School received a "B" grade.

also received a "B" grade overall, but the school did not meet AYP requirements in either math or reading in the "students with disabilities" subgroup. It is the only school serving the township that did not meet AYP requirements.

Heidi Kast, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment for Lake Orion Community Schools, said the school otherwise received an "A" Grade, but because one subgroup did not meet AYP requirements, the school's overall grade was lowered.

“We work very hard at the high school with our teachers and administration to show growth in those groups and try to meet their needs, and we actually did succeed in the last two years and met AYP, but it’s a different group of students you’re assessing each year," Kast said. "This year, we had a large population, and though they showed growth in that group, it wasn’t enough to meet the target."

Kast said the percentage of students that must reach the AYP requirements in each subgroup – which includes students with disabilities, economically disadvantage students and five ethnic groups – is the same for all students, regardless of whether the students have disabilities or not.

"These students are in that subgroup because they can’t necessarily work at the same level that all the other students do," Kast said. "Some of these students have severe disabilities, and we do the best that we can with them, and we are showing growth. Some of it’s just a little hard for these kids to master.”

She added, "It’s a high target to make."

Since it is the first year the school has not met AYP requirements, Lake Orion High School is not yet listed as a school that needs improvement, Kast said.

"It's just awareness that you need to look at that population and start working with it."

Kast said the school already has a plan to help students with disabilities reach the AYP proficiency target, and that teachers and staff are already working with children before they reach high school to identify their needs and work on individual plans.

“We’re already looking at those students who are going to be assessed next spring and trying to provide as much as we can this year to get them up to where we’d like them to be," Kast said.

"We're optimistic."

AYP scores are what the federal government uses to hold schools accountable. They are calculated for all 3,437 public schools in the state using target achievement goals.

Overall Michigan schools saw a 7.1 percentage point decrease in students making AYP, dropping from from 86 percent of schools in 2009-10 to 79 percent in 2010-11.

State school officials attributed the overall drop in scores to the increased rigor: federal proficiency targets increased this year and schools had to have a higher percentage of students proficient to be considered as having made AYP.

"We are raising the bar on what they need to know, to also raise AYP simultaneously is very, very difficult," said Jan Ellis, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Education, in a statement released along with the data.

Between the 2009-10 and the 2010-11 school year, targets jumped between 8 percent and 10 percent. For instance, in math, 2010-11 represented the first proficiency target increase since 2006-07; the previous three years retained the same targets.

Ellis said every time the state increases the target by 10 or 12 points, especially in math, there tends to be a group of students on the cusp, that when the scores increase, they just don't make it.

The reduction in the percentage of schools meeting AYP can be seen most significantly in high schools, where there was a 21.9 percent decrease in the number of high schools making AYP this year. Alternative schools also had a substantial decrease in the percentage making AYP, from 36.6 percent last year to 17.7 percent this year.

Ellis said the state is awaiting word on whether the federal government will give Michigan a waiver on meeting proficiency targets in the next 10 years as it works on boosting overall academic performance.

For full AYP report results, visit https://www.mischooldata.org/.