Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Just how well are schools in Kosciusko County educating students?
Parents can find out by reading the Performance Reports that will appear in the classified ad section of the Times-Union.
The Indiana Department of Education requires school corporations to publish, usually in the legal ad section of newspapers, their annual Performance Reports each year between Sept. 1 and Sept. 15.
The report for Warsaw Community Schools is printed on page 11B of today's Times-Union.
So why should parents or other patrons of the school system care about the Performance Reports?
It's one way to judge whether a school or school system is meeting objectives, the DOE says.
"Schools that are doing a good job in identifying student needs," said Dwayne James, policy analyst for the DOE, "... and involving parents and the community in school activities should realize increases in each of these areas."
James admitted, however, that only two years of data are available, so trends may be difficult to determine.
Most of the charts are self-explanatory and compare each local school corporation to a state standard. Each school corporation is profiled, and then each school in that corporation is also charted.
On corporation-level data, Total Expenditures Per Pupil figures are based on a three-year average, and simply use the school corporation's total budget divided by the number of students.
For Warsaw Community Schools during the 1997-98 school year, the chart shows the expenditure per pupil of $7,000, slightly more than the state average of $6,800.
Other charts, especially those involving students eligible for free lunches, remediation funding, gifted and talented education and expulsions and suspensions, are not compared to state figures because no state standards are set for those areas. Each school district is free to set its own criteria.
Also, expulsions and suspensions refer only to out-of-school suspensions, according to Stu Huffman of the DOE.
A quick look at the charts for Warsaw Community High School shows that the graduation rate last year was 2 percent lower than the state average, the percent of 10th graders passing the ISTEP+ test was above the state average and the SAT composite score for college-bound seniors was slightly below state and U.S. averages.
However, it also shows that more Warsaw seniors took the SAT than the state and U.S. averages, and WCHS had more students earning honors diplomas than the state average.
The information in the Performance Report also helps parents compare their child's school to others in the same district.
For example, placed side by side, the 1998-99 school year information for Lakeview and Edgewood middle schools is similar for attendance and ISTEP+ results.
More differences exist between Warsaw's 10 elementary schools.
The percent of third graders passing the ISTEP+ in math went from a high of 85 percent for Washington Elementary to a low of 48 percent for Jefferson Elementary. For language arts in grade three, the percentages ranged from 86 percent for Silver Lake to 60 percent for Jefferson.
However, in sixth grade, Jefferson was highest in ISTEP+ math, with 87 percent passing, while Madison was lowest, with 51 percent. For language arts, Eisenhower had a high of 78 percent and Atwood was at the bottom with 38 percent.
The Performance Report also lists the number of students per teacher and the attendance rate at each school.
Most of the charts include a rating called the "95th Percentile." This is a benchmark used by the state to measure scores against.
For example, in the chart titled "Grade 10, Percent Passing ISTEP+ Math Standard" for WCHS last year, the state average was 59 percent, WCHS' rate was 67 percent and the 95th percentile was 78. This means 95 percent of the schools in the state had fewer than 78 percent of grade 10 students who met state standards. Only 5 percent of schools in Indiana equaled or exceeded 78 percent.
Parents who want to learn more about their child's school may use the DOE's Web site at http://doe.state.in.us/htmls/education.html.
