Educators drop two from federal watch list

The New Hampshire Department of Education this week removed schools in Derry and Nashua from a federal watch list of potentially failing schools after re-examining standardized test data at the request of the schools.

The Derry Village School and Nashua High School North appealed their appearance last month on a preliminary list of 74 schools statewide in "need of improvement." The state education department created the list to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act, a sweeping federal education-reform law that requires schools to boost state standardized test scores for all groups of students, including those with learning disabilities.

Many schools landed on the list because collective test scores for special education students failed to meet a state minimum standard for "adequate yearly progress" for two consecutive years.

The department removed a third school, in Center Ossipee, from the list based on its appeal. Appeals from eight other schools -- including Milford Middle School, Pinkerton Academy in Derry, and Nashua's three middle schools -- were rejected. They can file another appeal to the state Board of Education before its Oct. 20 meeting.

The state approves an appeal if there is an error in the data or if an unforeseen situation arose around testing time that could have hurt student test performance, such as the death of a teacher.

"After careful review and consideration, we determined that these three schools met the criteria to change their designation," said Nicholas C. Donohue, commissioner of the state Department of Education. "Our efforts will now focus on the schools that are still identified as a school in need of improvement to aid them in the development of local school improvement plans."

The Derry Village School successfully argued in its appeal that a special education student's math score was not reflective of the student's typical performance in school because of a personal situation during testing. School leaders asked that the score not be included when tabulating the overall score for special education students in math -- the one category that caused the school to be placed on the list. By removing the student's score, it improved the overall score enough so the school made "adequate yearly progress."

"We couldn't be happier," said John Moody, superintendent of the Derry Cooperative School District. "It takes a stigma off a school that's doing a great job."

Nashua High School North, on the other hand, argued that the school should have never appeared on the list because it did not officially open as its own entity until this year. Nashua is wrapping up a $143 million school construction project that resulted in the official splitting of the city's high school population into two schools -- its original high school now known as Nashua High School South, and the new school.

For the past two years, the north school was used as a satellite campus for the city's original high school and did not until this month house the 10th grade, which takes the state standardized test each spring.

"We were going through a transition and Nashua High School North didn't have any of those students in the building last year," said Joseph Giuliano, Nashua schools superintendent. "I think it was the right decision for the state to make."

Giuliano, however, disagrees with the state education department's decision to reject the appeals of its three middle schools, and will file another appeal with the state Board of Education. Like Nashua High School North, none of the students at the three middle schools took the exam last spring. At that time, the schools educated students in grades 7-9, but now the schools consist of grades 6-8. Sixth-graders take the state test annually.

"I don't understand why they approved one and not the others," Giuliano said. "The whole system was going through a transition. It doesn't sound fair to me."

Pinkerton Academy also will file an appeal with the state Board of Education. It failed to make adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years because only 94 percent of its special education students took the state exam last spring, instead of a required minimum of 95 percent. Most of the six or seven special education students who did not take the exam had long-term medical conditions that prevented them from attending school.

"We are disappointed with the commissioner's decision," said Nick Ithomitis, the school's principal.

Schools that remain on the list must submit a school improvement plan to the state education department by Dec. 13. Parents also can transfer their children to another school in the district, if the school in need of improvement receives federal funding through the Title I program for low-income students. Schools that stay on the list for several years risk loss of federal dollars and a state takeover.

Locally, schools in Derry, Litchfield, Londonderry, Merrimack, Milford, Nashua and Salem appear on the list, which is considerably longer than last year's list of six schools. State education observers predict the list will grow in future years as the percentage of students required to pass the math and reading exams incrementally increases to 100 percent by the 2013-2014 school year.

Schools may apply for a $4,500 grant to help them formulate an improvement plan.