OCEANSIDE – Bess Bronson's strategy for improving Oceanside's five lowest-performing schools will begin with a deceptively easy exercise.
SCOTT LINNETT / Union-Tribune
Bess Bronson is charged with improving academic achievement at five schools in Oceanside.
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The former Libby Elementary School principal, who began working this spring to turn around academic performance at King and Lincoln middle and Mission, Ditmar and Reynolds elementary schools, said educators need to ask three questions:
Who are our students?
What do we want them to learn?
What do we want them to do when they don't learn it?
The third will be the toughest to answer, she said. But by asking the questions, educators in the Oceanside Unified School District hope to fulfill the promise of the federal education law, “No Child Left Behind,” which is designed to make public schools accountable for the academic achievement of every student.
“Every school is different (and) one size does not fit all,” Bronson said. “We have to really start looking at what our schools need individually in order to be successful.”
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ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE SCORES: BY THE NUMBERS
The Oceanside Unified School District has targeted five of its lowest performing schools for improvement. Below are the 2006 Academic Performance Index scores for English-language learners at each school. The API is a statistical measure of student performance on standardized state tests. Schools are challenged to achieve an API score of 800 overall and for each subgroup of students.
679: Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School
664: Reynolds Elementary School
663: Mission Elementary School
620: Ditmar Elementary School
606: Lincoln Middle School
SOURCE: California Department of Education
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The five targeted schools are designated as “Program Improvement” schools by the state. These schools have not achieved goals on state-mandated tests for the past two years in either English/language arts or mathematics, or for certain subgroups of students. The subgroups include ethnic groups, children from low-income homes, English-language learners and students with disabilities.
Many students at Oceanside's five lowest-performing schools are struggling to learn English.
“We are not accustomed in public education to paying attention to the bottom 25 percent of our students, because sometimes we can ride the backs of our highest performing students and look good,” said Ken Noonan, the superintendent of the Oceanside school district who launched the improvement effort and is retiring this week.
The federal law and state standards for academic achievement are now prompting many educators to raise expectations for all students, Noonan said.
“Too many teachers believe that low-performing kids cannot really succeed,” Noonan said. Poverty, under-educated parents, gang violence and other issues are undeniable challenges.
“Those are the things that kids bring to school, but they are not good reasons why kids fail,” Noonan said.
Districts that have Program Improvement schools are required by the state and federal governments to devote money and other resources to boost performance. State law also requires the districts to provide students with the option of transferring to a school that is not under Program Improvement status.
Oceanside Unified will spend $239,000 in state grant money to pay Bronson's $139,000 salary as director of program improvement. It also will pay for literacy coaches at each of the five schools.
The district also is setting aside 10 percent of its Title I money that is allocated by the federal government to improve the academic achievement of schools with poor students. Oceanside Unified receives about $5 million in Title I funds annually, and about $500,000 will be used for the current effort.
“Our goal will be to focus on individual students, individual classrooms and individual grade levels within the school, and then the school,” Bronson said.
At Libby, Bronson led several schoolwide efforts to maximize student achievement. Students are routinely applauded for success in the classroom and for good behavior on the playground and on the school bus. Teachers are given extra time to plan lessons, and they collaborate to improve teaching approaches. Teachers also set high expectations for every student.
Noonan said Bronson was tapped for the job because of her broad experience as a teacher and administrator at elementary, middle and high schools – and for her particular success at Libby.
“We wanted a principal ... who's had both feet in a school for the last several years,” Noonan said.
Bronson's expertise at keeping Libby out of Program Improvement status, despite the challenging demographics of its students, was also a plus. About 60 percent of Libby's students are learning English and more than 80 percent are poor, she said.
Six years ago when Bronson began as principal at Libby, the school's Academic Performance Index, a measure of academic achievement, was 590. Today it's 711. The goal for all schools is 800.
Bronson said she is confident the five schools can turn around.
“Our teachers are working very, very hard,” she said. “We just need them to refocus and fine-tune.”
Bruce Lieberman: (760) 476-8205; bruce.lieberman@uniontrib.com
