Avery Parents Have Choice Again: School Misses English Mark

Avery School parents have a choice once again.

For the second consecutive year, must offer school choice as it failed to meet adequate yearly progress [AYP] benchmarks in English language arts on the 2011 MCAS tests.

School principal Clare Sullivan notified Avery parents in a letter dated Aug. 22, laying out options for parents and discussing what the school has done, and will continue to do, to improve test scores.

“These areas do not indicate a failing school, but they do highlight areas where more work is needed to ensure that all students are growing,” Sullivan wrote.

Parents with a child at the Avery Elementary School may choose to move their student to another elementary school in the district, and by law, the district must set aside a percentage of Title I funds to pay for transportation for those students.

MCAS scores will not be released until mid-September, but as a Title I school in improvement status, Avery must offer school choice and notify parents immediately.

A Title I school that doesn’t meet AYP benchmarks in aggregate or in subgroups for two consecutive years must offer school choice by law.

the school choice option last fall.

Last year, Massachusetts placed Avery School into the improvement year one category for for two years (2009-2010). This year, Avery met AYP in math, but didn’t meet it in ELA for the second year (2010-2011).

“The aggregate [AYP score] did show growth, although it was not enough to meet the school’s improvement target,” Sullivan wrote to parents.

The school department will not hold a public meeting with Avery parents before school starts as it did last year. Sullivan noted last year’s meeting was necessary because it was the first time a Dedham school had to offer choice.

The school district implemented programs to improve math scores at Avery last year, and Sullivan said in a phone interview that it would do the same for English.

In July, the School Committee approved a to use in grades one and two beginning this year. That program is made by the same company that makes Everyday Math, a curriculum already in use at Avery.

Since July, a donation has allowed the school to extend the literacy program Treasures to include grade three.

Under the No Child Left Behind law, every student must be proficient in English and math by 2014, however federal authorities have taken steps that signal backing off that mandate, and allowing states to file waivers to that law. The process for who would qualify for a waiver has not been determined yet, Sullivan said.

“There are certain things that you are going to have to guarantee to do,” Sullivan said. “No one has the information of what it is that you have to do to seek the waiver.”

Despite the national criticism of NCLB, Sullivan said the law helped to improve the district as a whole.

“It really forced us to make sure all the schools had the same curriculum,” Sullivan said. “There have been benefits to it, it is just that as it gets close to 2014, the Town of Dedham, just like every other school system in the state and the country, is really struggling to meet that [goal] that says every single person is going to be at the same point.”