AYP-Adequate Yearly Progress
The manner in which the state of Illinois measures success for schools in 2009 simply rates last year's classes on a 70% pass rate of meets or exceeds. If 70% of students in that school met or exceeded, the school met AYP. This also includes the subgroups of special education (students with IEP's) and free/reduced students. While our overall scores for the district are good (achieving at a level needed for two years from now), our subgroups did not allow us to meet at Centennial while the scores at the high school fell below the benchmark.
The state's benchmark percentage has increased and will continue to increase by 7.5% each year. So, in the spring of 2010 the "pass" rate will be 77.5% of all students tested. This is AYP-adequate yearly progress.
We agree, though, with our parents who have told us that they are more interested in seeing how their child's class progresses through the district from year to year. This is called a Growth Model. This is the model that we will operate on this year. In fact, our grade level teams and departments at the high school are meeting to analyze these results in order to set goals for this year's testing in their particular classes. In this way, even if a class has performed well above the state goals, we can still set an improvement goal that should help drive instruction. Individual students are monitored throughout the year to allow our staff to arrange additional assistance. Our staff continually strives to provide for a learning environment that will create overall success.