Two Oceanside schools ‘in need of improvement’

Earlier this month, the New York State Department of Education announced that a record-setting 1,325 schools were now labeled as “in need of improvement” under the No Child Left Behind Act. Oceanside’s School 3 and School 8 were among them.

Being marked as “in need of improvement” means that the schools did not meet the Adequate Yearly Performance (AYP) that was set. According to the Department of Education, “AYP is the minimum level of performance schools and districts must achieve each year and is based on student participation and performance on State assessments.”

“It’s all about special education kids,” explained Superintendent of Schools Dr. Herb Brown. “It’s not about School 3 and School 8, it’s about special education kids at School 3 and School 8. Many of them who live in the other parts of town. But we cluster our special education kids.”

Brown explained that there were two main factors behind the dip in scores this year. The first reason was that, because of the district’s collaborative special education model, all of the district’s special education students are clustered at Schools 3 and 8. “So if the 4th grade is going to be in School 3,” Brown said, “that means all of the 4th graders from all over the district who are going to be in special ed. colab. are going to School 3.”

The other factor that contributed to the downgrading of the schools is changes from the state. For years, since the AYP was introduced, states recognized that special education students would have a harder time meeting those standards. To mitigate that, the state would automatically award special education students 34 extra points on the exams, which was known as Safe Harbor. That practice, however, stopped last year.

“It’s really not fair to these special needs kids to say they’re having difficulty meeting their targets,” Brown said. “The reason they’re special education kids is because they have difficulty meeting their targets.”

But No Child Left Behind needs to be re-authorized by Congress this year, and the legislative body is deadlocked. The Senate has a proposal that would, among other things, eliminate the AYP. But because of the deadlock, nothing is happening.

President Obama is offering states another option, though: if they meet federal regulations, states can apply for a waiver for No Child Left Behind. And that would eliminate the AYP. New York is applying for a waiver.

In the meantime, the teachers in Schools 3 and 8 are working with the students to make sure their scores improve on this year’s tests.

“[To get off ‘need improvement’ list], the kids this year need to get higher scores and get to their AYP,” said Brown. “Or New York State needs to get a waiver and then the whole system changes. Those are the two options.”