Test scores, grant, program on agenda
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on January 11, 2015 1:50 AM
The Wayne County Board of Education is expected to vote on a different way of measuring test scores at two alternative schools at its monthly meeting Monday night, and will also hear presentations on the expanding public safety program at Goldsboro High School, a migrant education grant introduced at Southern Wayne High School and a STEM fair for seventh-graders in March.
At committee meetings held earlier this past week, board members were apprised of the agenda items that will be come before them at the first meeting of the year.
Dr. David Lewis, assistant superintendent for accountability/information technology services and athletics, explained the alternative school accountability model, applicable at Wayne Academy and Edgewood Community Developmental School.
"In December, the state Board of Education voted to give us some flexibility on how we record data on our alternative schools," he said.
Traditional schools will have no leeway in how scores are judged when the measure goes into effect Feb. 5, he said, while the state has recognized that schools such as Wayne Academy and Edgewood have "special situations." The former primarily handles students transferred there due to behavior or other issues requiring a different environment, while Edgewood caters to special needs students with physical and developmental delays.
The district has four options under the Alternative Accountability Model -- A, using the same criteria as traditional schools; B, having test scores or growth scores reported to the student's base school; C, having the schools evaluated with consideration for the populations at these alternative schools; and D, allowing the district to come up with its own measures and present them to the state.
Lewis said principals at the two affected schools favor Option C and said he will seek approval from the full board at its meeting.
A thriving public safety program at GHS will be expanded in the next semester, with the introduction of a firefighting academy, Principal Brian Weeks told the curriculum and instruction committee.
The effort to add the academy began in 2009, he said, with officials investigating similar programs across the state before enlisting support from the Goldsboro Fire Department and grant funding.
"GHS will begin teaching three sections of firefighting beginning Jan. 22," he said, explaining that the courses will include the same elements required of all firefighters in the state and offering the same certifications.
He said when information sessions were held, 83 interested students -- "double the number we were hoping for" -- signed up.
"We're very excited" about the potential for the program to grow, Weeks said.
A Migrant Education Grant, targeting a lesser-recognized population in the school system, is being implemented in the southern end of the county, Debbie Ogburn, director of federal programs, told the committee.
"Because Wayne County is growing so much with the ESL (English as a Second Language) population, the state had already found quite a few migrant students," she said. "We were asked to start a migrant program in Wayne County."
This category, representing children of migrant workers arriving into the area and often only staying for a limited time, is a challenging one as students are not as easily identified.
"They're the ones that don't come up and say, 'I'm a migrant student,' because they're not on record," she said.
Locating and identifying these students, though, is beneficial to both the district and those served, Mrs. Ogburn said.
"It helps us because it brings more money into the school system," she said. "We will be able to put tutors in the schools, teachers in the schools, and eventually it will help the graduation rate because those are the students that come, get what they can and leave."
The district's first "STEM Fair," targeting science, technology, engineering and math, is being planned for March 4 at the YMCA, piggy-backing on the middle schools career fair being held the day before at the same location.
An estimated 1,496 seventh-graders, including home schools and private schools, will be able to attend the event allowing students to showcase some of the things they have been doing in their classrooms with technology, Sharon Barber, Career and Technical Education, or CTE, lead teacher, said.