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Test scores at Jefferson Elementary are improving, but the school is still on the state's list of schools facing consequences for not showing adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
Jefferson is one of Indiana's 791 Title I schools, or schools with significant populations of children from low-income families. The state determination for low income is based on the number of students that qualify for free or reduced lunches, which, at Jefferson, according to state figures, is 50 percent of the students. (Lincoln Elementary is the other Title I school in the Warsaw school system.)
Because of low ISTEP scores for third- and sixth-graders for two year in a row - 2000-01 and 2001-02 - Jefferson is now in what the state calls Year 1 status.
"The key consequence is that if a school is on ... a probation kind of thing, basically there's a consequence that if parents in that school want to transfer students to another school, then that can be a possibility," said Jefferson Principal Dennis Duncan.
Any student, not just one that falls under poverty status, can transfer, Duncan said. However, he said, they also were on the list last year, and no parents chose to transfer their children out of Jefferson.
In 2000-01, an average of 63.3 percent of all Jefferson students passed ISTEP, down from 71.2 percent the year before (state average was 63 percent). In 2001-02, an average of 60.7 passed (state average was 64 percent).
Last year, Jefferson's average score for ISTEPs jumped to 84.3, showing significant improvement. However, Duncan said, "It takes two years of bad scores to get in (the list), and two years to get off."
If the 2003-04 scores improve, he said, Jefferson will be taken off the sanctions list.
The purpose of attaching consequences to what the state deems as inadequate performance, Duncan said, is "to challenge Title I schools to higher standards and higher expectations."
The state provides extra funding to Title I schools - in the past two years, Duncan said, Jefferson has received more than $400,000 through the Title I program. That money has been used to develop different programming, after-school programs, help with homework, extended one-on-one time and summer school programming.
He attributes the "huge and wonderful jump" between 2002 and 2003 to these programs and to standards-based instruction.
Of Jefferson's approximately 300 students, Duncan said, 24 percent are English-as-a-second-language students, and many of those are from poverty.
"Take poverty and then add the language issue and it's a wonder that any of these kids succeed, but they do," he said. "These kids are motivated."
That motivation is shared by the teachers, Duncan said, who are more focused on teaching to standards, which, along with the added programs, is resulting in higher test scores.
