Schools
Update: Helix, Grossmont School Officials React to Moves in API Scores
Helix Executive Director Rani Goyal says: "This does not tell the full story of the excellence being achieved through our educational program."
Updated at 10:50 a.m. Tuesday
Helix Charter High School’s leader has acknowledged “our slight move backwards” in the school’s API score—a composite of test scores that the state uses to meet academic accountability laws.
According to results released Wednesday, Helix had a 2011 score of 787, short of last year’s 795.
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By contrast, Grossmont High School’s 2011 API, or academic performance index, was 769 after logging a 764 in 2010. But Grossmont was judged as having met schoolwide growth targets, while Helix had not. Statewide, schools are expected to shoot for a score of 800, with 1,000 being the best possible.
“While the API score for Helix Charter High School did drop 8 points, this does not tell the full story of the excellence being achieved through our educational program,” said Rani Goyal, in her second year as executive director at Helix.
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Goyal said her school, which had 1,726 students in the latest API, had more students pass the math and English portions of the California high school exit exam in 2011 than in previous years, “and we had fewer students scoring in the far-below-basic category across the board in their STAR tests.”
The Helix graduating class of 2011 was the biggest in its history, she noted, adding that this is “a figure made even more impressive when one considers that Helix graduates have to meet tougher requirements than their peers at other schools.”
All Helix graduates must meet the so-called A-G requirements—the courses required for admission to the UC and CSU systems.
“While we acknowledge our accomplishments, we also acknowledge our slight move backwards,” Goyal said Friday. “We are a school that has improved over 150 points since the inception of the API system, with positive gains most years, and we recognize that large gains over several years may sometimes be followed by a small loss.”
She said Helix officials “are studying the strengths of our programs and determining where we can be stronger. Faculty members are working in course-level teams to look at data such as results from common assessments in courses and STAR data related to strands of the standards.”
From this work, she said, Helix will determine what extra help “we may be able to offer students to complement the tutorial support already provided to all freshmen, as well as upperclassmen who need or request it.”
She concluded: “Helix Charter High School is taking the time to find better ways to help our students learn. We are working together as a team to find our answers and it is this team approach that will move the school forward.”
Grossmont High School, where school started Tuesday, is proud of its API score, said principal Theresa Kemper.
“If you graph it over the past years, you see that it has steadily increased every year,” Kemper said. “We focus our effort on students meeting content standards in the core subjects, which is reflected in the increased proficiency rates on the California Standards Tests (CSTs) of the STAR exam for grades 9-11.”
She said significant increases this year came in physics (18.77 percent), high school math (18.69 percent), U. S. history (8.75 percent), chemistry (7.46 percent), and Grade 11 English (4.83 percent).
“We also had overall increases in all of the subject categories,” she said. “Those increases reflect teachers’ work to align their course curriculum with the content standards and to continually hone their instructional strategies and practices within their departments and teams.
Kemper, who will have been principal nine years this December, said the school’s failure to meet API goals for subgroups has led to “a hard look at the interventions we are offering for students in those subgroups who need additional help to be academically successful.”
She said Grossmont continues to offer a schoolwide tutoring program, and “we very quickly reformulated this year’s algebra intervention classes and plan to do so with our reading classes as well. In addition, we are offering some online course work with extra help for students who already failed the course in the traditional setting.”
Kemper said a big change is ahead regarding course offerings next year.
“We want all of our students to be enrolled in a course that aligns with a CST exam,” she said via email Tuesday. “If we could afford the additional staffing, we would make sure all of our ninth-graders are enrolled in a science class. They currently are not, which hurts our score.
“In addition, we have many students enrolled in Conceptual Physics, for which there is no CST, and we do not offer Integrated Science, for which there is a CST. We will review our courses in science and math to make sure courses are aligned with the exams.”
She said the school needs to save money to be able to afford the new textbooks for those courses next year.
“Helping students not only graduate from high school but to achieve at the highest academic level is a work in progress,” she said “We can always push students to try harder and show us what they are fully capable of. As a staff, we constantly train to stay current with best practices in teaching and learning and new technologies in the world around us. As our special populations increase, like our most recent immigrants from Iraq, we hurry to stay ahead of their unique learning needs.”
Grossmont district schools Superintendent Ralf Swenson also posted a reaction on the Grossmont Union High School District website.
Swenson called the district’s API result—growing from 736 to 743— “largely positive, with our latest assessment data showing districtwide growth in terms of API and [exit exam] pass rates.”
“This growth is a positive indicator,” he wrote, “but the need for further improvement will drive our continuing efforts to provide improved learning experiences for all of our students.”
He said the district’s 12 high schools “experienced significant growth districtwide in the percentage of students scoring at the advanced and proficient level in geometry, high school math, physics and integrated science.”
Algebra I scores jumped dramatically at five schools, he noted.
“Our best growth by subject area came in math and science, with districtwide improvement of 3.5% in each area. Monte Vista High School led the way in overall API growth, jumping by 31 points and meeting established growth targets for all significant subgroups of students.”
Meanwhile, Superintendent Brian Marshall of the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District pronounced himself pleased overall with the API scores for his K-8 district.
Marshall, who heads a district of 17 elementary schools and four middle schools, said: “We have many schools (61%) that are above the state target of 800, including the district as a whole with an API score of 807.”
Another group of schools are nearly there, he said, and “we have no schools below 700 and only two schools under 750”— in Spring Valley and nearby .
“Several schools posted impressive gains; however, there were also a few that had a decline,” he said.
The district’s best API score was 904 by Murray Manor Elementary School in north La Mesa followed by the 902 at Murdock Elementary serving the Mount Helix and Casa de Oro areas south of La Mesa.
“A look at the AYP data reveals the areas to continue to focus on,” said Marshall, in his ninth year as superintendent. “Some of our subgroup scores are not where we want them to be. We will work with our teachers, principals, students and parents as we continue to improve the learning for all students.”
Marshall expressed no worries about the testing consequences of keeping sixth-graders in the elementary schools—instead of moving them to middle schools as was the case for years.
“The research data indicates that the structure of sixth grade (at the elementary or middle school) is not really a determining factor for student achievement,” he said.
“It is the teaching in the classroom that makes the difference. I would not be surprised to see some improvement in the sixth-grade scores, but I believe that would be the result of our instructional focus rather than the location the students at our elementary schools.”
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