Friday, Nov. 21, 2008

Trustee Asks, but Doesn’t Get Campus Results

Jorge Rodriguez Wants Test Stats, School Board Votes to Deny Request

By Scott Price

Staff Writer

Jorge Rodriguez, Grapevine-Colleyville school board trustee, requested more campus-level detail from the annual accountability report than has been provided to the board, but his request was denied by the board with a 4-3 vote.

GCISD board trustees Jesse Rodriguez, Lisa Hall, Vicki Thomas and Charlie Warner voted to deny the request. Nancy Coplen and Leon Leal joined Jorge in voting for it.

The Adequate Yearly Progress Report is overseen by the federal government and is part of the No Child Left Behind requirements. The report looks at six categories of students: African-American, Hispanic, white, economically disadvantaged, special education and limited English proficient.

The economically disadvantaged group in the 10th grade at Colleyville Heritage High School did not meet the 95 percent participation expectation in math in the 2008 Adequate Yearly Progress Report. If CHHS misses the participation expectation again next year, the district will have to submit a school improvement plan.

Jorge asked for more detail at the campus level for all the district’s schools.

Jorge said looking at the district-wide data can mask what is happening at an individual school. He said if a school is struggling and it is known, changes can be made. But he added if a school is doing particularly well, what that school is doing can be shared with the other campuses.

GCISD Superintendent Kay Waggoner said that GCISD administrators look at the data in detail at the campus level.

GCISD Deputy Superintendent Jim Chadwell said he estimated that it would take more than 10 hours of staff time to compile the requested information.

Jorge said the data did not need to be put into graphs or tables.

"I don’t need it pretty," he said. "I just need the data."

GCISD officials said the requested information is available on the Texas Education Web site in raw form. Jorge said that because the district already had the campus information, he thought administrators should share it with trustees.

In other action at the GCISD board meeting:

Tommie Johnson, GCISD Human Resources executive director, reported to the board that teachers in all core areas were "highly qualified," according to the No Child Left Behind standards.

Teachers in the 10 core areas, ranging from English and art to math and foreign languages, must be certified teachers, have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and show subject competency.

The core teachers include 374 in the elementary schools, 164 in the middle schools and 226 in the high schools. That’s a total of 764 teachers out of a total teaching staff of about 950, Johnson said.

"We are 100 percent compliant for our highly qualified status," she said.

"I do believe it has made all of us take a better look at the credentials of all our teachers," she said of the report, that was to be

Jenny Moore, Grapevine High School Softball Booster Club president, said during the open forum that the GHS softball scoreboard needs to be replaced. A large group of softball players, parents and booster club members attended the meeting in support. Moore reported that it would cost $18,645 to deliver and install a new scoreboard, according to an estimate the booster club has received.

She said the scoreboard often does not work at all, and when it does, its lights are unusually bright.

Superintendent Waggoner said later in the meeting that the GHS softball scoreboard is one of the district items being reviewed for replacement.