By FULLER ROYAL

The Whiteville City Schools had one school of its five to make Adequate Yearly progress (AYP) with the federal government’s No Child Left Behind program.

Central Middle School is the only Whiteville school to make AYP this year and it’s the first time that the grades 6-8 school has made the cut, meeting all 10 of its target goals.

This year’s results are a major disappointment for Whiteville High School, which would have also made AYP for the first time if all of its algebra students had bothered to take their end-of-course tests.

WHS met 15 of its 17 target goals. The two goals not met were for participation. NCLB requires that at least 95 percent of students in each target group take the test.

With a couple of students absent and several more failing to take their tests, WHS missed its first opportunity to make AYP.

Edgewood Elementary School had nine of 11 target goals met while Whiteville Primary is a feeder school and depends on Edgewood for its AYP status.

North Whiteville Academy did not make AYP based on alternatives to the target goals.

Assistant Superintendent Cindy Williamson said that when some of the students in the first part of their Algebra I class didn’t pass the course, somehow they fell through the cracks and didn’t take their end-of-course tests.

Williamson said that school officials were disappointed for the school to be that close to AYP and then miss its chance.

CMS will not know for certain of its AYP status until the math scores are released by the state in October. The state administered a new end-of-grade math test this year and has experienced some unknown difficulties in the scoring of those tests.

CMS’s AYP status for the time being is based solely on its reading scores. There are eight AYP schools in the Columbus County system in the same boat.

In grades three through eight, end-of-grade tests in reading and math are administered to every student. To qualify for AYP, at least 76.7 percent of the students must pass the reading portion in those grades.

When the math scores are released, at least 81 percent of the students in each grade must pass.

What makes AYP difficult to reach is the requirement that each subgroup be equally proficient.

If the overall school is 90 percent proficient and then one subgroup drops below the 76.7 proficiency rate, then the entire school fails to make AYP.

Subgroups are the school as a whole, white students, black students, limited English proficient students, students with disabilities, Hispanic students, economically disadvantaged students, multi-racial students, Native American students and Asian students.

The state will not release any information about the various subgroups’ performance rates until October.