By FULLER ROYAL
Despite its best efforts during the 2005-06 school year, West Columbus High School dropped in its overall proficiency rating and will remain on a list of schools “to be watched” compiled by N.C. Superior Court Judge Howard Manning as well as Gov. Mike Easley.
Last year, 59.9 percent of WCHS’s students were considered proficient. With unofficial results in for the 2005-06 school year, that percentage has dropped to 57.6.
WCHS walks a thin wire with Manning. Last spring, West was reported by Manning as one of 44 high schools in North Carolina that failed to have at least 60 percent of its students score proficient on the state’s end-of-course tests.
Manning sent a letter to the State Board of Education in March that sent chills down the spines of school administrators across the state where he threatened to close down the worst performing schools.
Manning originally wanted the trigger for school closure to be a proficiency rate lower than 65 percent. He later deferred to the General Assembly, which set the level at 55 percent.
Any high school scoring below 55 percent this past year will not be allowed to open in August until a school improvement action plan has been approved by Manning himself.
Manning, a proponent of the freshman academy approach to high schools, is likely to force failing schools to adopt this innovative measure.
In extreme cases, Manning could order the removal of principals who have been at those schools for more than two years.
Columbus County Superintendent Dan Strickland and WCHS Principal Worley Edwards are disappointed that West’s scores didn’t rise – the first time since AYP measurements began in 2001.
But they were glad that the school didn’t fall below Manning’s trigger score of 55 percent.
In June, Easley jumped on board with Manning, ordering that assistance teams be sent in to help any school scoring below 60 percent.
The goal is to bring the lower performing schools at least up to 70 percent proficient.
Strickland said that a team from the State Board of Education had visited WCHS in May. The visit included extensive interviews with Strickland and Edwards.
Strickland said that schools scoring below 70 percent proficient would also receive assistance from these teams.
He said the visiting team in May had positive things to say about several aspects of West, including the strong rapport between teacher and students.
While WCHS has received no specific recommendations from the team, Strickland said that, at a minimum, a consultant would be assigned to work with WCHS several days each week.
Edwards said that even with the low scores, the team was pleased that growth was being made, adding that only a few students falling short of proficient kept WCHS from reaching 60 percent proficient last year.
The data is incomplete on WCHS’s drop this year.
Edwards said that WCHS has numerous strengths and many areas in which it excels.
It has the highest scores in the county on its VoCats, the tests administered to students taking vocational or tech-prep courses. Those test scores were among the top 5 percent statewide.
It’s one of two schools in the county – and one of the few in the state – that builds a fully functional house each year for public auction.
It has a strong and successful Future Farmers of America team that brings home first place wins every year from state and national conventions and meets.
All three arms of its arts program are strong. In visual arts, it has state and national Scholastic Gold Key winners who have traveled to recognition ceremonies in New York, N.Y.
Its marching band regularly wins parade and concert competitions and its jazz band can’t fill all of the requests it gets each year for performance dates.
The school’s theater and dance department is a regular winner of festivals and competitions. Three of its students have made it to the North Carolina School of the Arts.
“The team was very complimentary of our extra-curricular activities,” Edwards said. “There are a lot of positive things going on from our kids.”
Edwards said that while the school does offer a variety of extra-curricular activities, a full third of the student body doesn’t participate in anything. He wants to change that.
He said the school needs the support of more parents, a goal made difficult by 80 percent of WCHS students coming from single or no-parent homes.
Strickland said that there is a good climate at West. He said morale is high and students and faculty feel safe.
Edwards wasted no time this past year in sending troublemakers out of the school.
During the 2005-06 school year, WCHS sent Nakina Alternative School 22 students. Edwards said that outside those of ejected students, the vast majority of his students give him no problems.
Edwards and Strickland both believe that a high teacher turnover rate at WCHS has played a major role in the school’s lower scores.
Over the past six years, 15 longtime teachers retired, leaving major holes to fill. Ever since, the turnover rate has run as high as 28 percent with up to one-fourth of the faculty being replaced annually.
Edwards said that with only five new teachers coming this year, the high losses of teachers might finally be capped.
The new 8 percent pay increase for North Carolina’s teachers this fall will help.
Strickland said that too many of the teachers making their way to WCHS were first-year or lateral-entry teachers, adding that it’s a relatively young faculty.
This past year, a teacher responsible for 60 students in a state-tested course quit mid-semester, leaving those students without a certified teacher.
The loss of a good teacher mid-year can only hurt test scores.
Edwards and Strickland cited a lack of continuity among the faculty. Students would sign up for a course with a teacher they were looking forward to, only to have that teacher leave during the summer.
The teachers who have stayed must spend extra time making sure that the affected students receive what they need.
Edwards also concedes that the high turnover rate among principals has contributed to the problem.
In the eight years since Danny McPherson left as principal, there have been four changes in leadership.
Edwards is beginning his second year back. He was there earlier and left to work as an assistant superintendent in the Whiteville City Schools.
“This is the only job I would have come back for,” Edwards said, adding that he will see the school through whatever it needs to bring its scores up.
Most of the students at WCHS come from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Edwards said that too many of the students have not taken the tests seriously enough.
To counter that attitude, the school has established an academic boosters club and will publicly and formally recognize academic achievement.
The biggest item on WCHS’s plate this year is the establishment of a freshman academy.
Using a model similar to Whiteville High School, WCHS is housing all of its freshmen in one section of the school.
Freshmen will stay together most of the day, using the same teachers. Freshmen seminar will be taught, offering ninth-graders a course on how to study, how to take tests and how to keep up. They will learn what’s expected of them.
Freshmen weak in math will take a course designed to catch them up on their math skills and then go straight into Algebra I with that same teacher. A similar class will be for weak readers. They, too, will follow the same teacher to English I.
Edwards said a freshman orientation day would be held shortly before school starts in August. He will also have tutoring help from the Upward Bound Program at Southeastern Community College.
Strickland said that GEAR-UP, a program in place for two years at Chadbourn Middle School, would see its first freshmen this year.
GEAR-UP raises personal expectations and demonstrates that college is a real possibility for students who would otherwise never give it a second thought.
Edwards said that additional Advanced Placement courses are being added, bringing the potential total to 10.
Edwards said his teachers have done whatever they have been asked to do and they will rise to the occasion. The school is working to coordinate teacher’s schedules so that teachers in the same grade with the same subjects can share planning periods and work together.
Strickland said that the same benchmark testing used successfully in the lower grades would be implemented at WCHS this fall.
Known as Assessment Companion, it was championed last year by East Columbus High School.
Kathy Lewis, the county schools’ high school curriculum coordinator, said that the visiting team was impressed by the relationships between teachers and students.
She said that principals and assistant principals at all of the county schools will visit each classroom at some point during each day. Central Office personnel, including the superintendent, will be more visible as they spend more time visiting and touring the schools.
“I feel like we are on the right track,” Strickland said. He said more focus is needed at West as well as the other high schools.
Edwards said the time had also come to restructure the curriculum at WCHS and to rework the order in which some courses are taken.
Even though WCHS’s scores are the lowest of the local high schools, the other schools aren’t out of the woods.
Preliminary scores for East and South Columbus high schools, and Whiteville High School, haven’t been released.
Relatively speaking, their scores are not too far from WCHS’s and all are below the state average.
In 2004-05, with WCHS at 59.9 percent proficient, ECHS was 66.4 percent proficient. WHS was 69 percent proficient and SCHS was 73.9 percent proficient.
ECHS and WHS will receive team assistance or consultants from the state if their scores remain below 70 percent this year.
No high school has had more than three-quarters of its students proficient since measurements began back in the late 1990s.
Judge Manning became interested in high school accountability by accident.
He was assigned to handle the Leandro Case, a lawsuit filed by several poor counties in the state, citing that the North Carolina Constitution had been violated by the State Board of Education because their children’s educations were funded at much lower rates than wealthier counties.
Manning ruled that the funding methods were constitutional.
While investigating the case, Manning, according to his letter, was astounded by the number of low performing schools and by just how badly they were doing.
As he traveled the state’s court circuit, he visited with school administrators and principals.
He was not happy with what he saw. He discovered that 44 high schools regularly had fewer than 60 percent of their students proficient.
He asked the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction to tabulate the cost of running the 44 lowest-performing schools. Their figure was $268 million.
Manning asked what it cost to run the 44 highest performing schools. The answer was $254 million – $14 million less.