Four schools flagged for wide achievement gap

The state released its annual school accountability scorecards this month, showing area school districts falling anywhere between average to below average based on the state’s achievement measurements.

Brandywine Community Schools and Buchanan Community Schools graded out in the middle of the pack for performance, while Niles Community Schools was slotted just below that.

The state used color-coded scorecards to indicate performance with green being the best, lime being the second best, yellow being third, orange fourth and red fifth.

Brandywine and Buchanan districts both attained yellow designations, while Niles was in the orange.

According to the state, colors are determined by points accumulated for goals met, or by demonstrating improvement. Forty-seven percent of schools in the state achieved a yellow designation, while 30.1 percent were in the lime. Six percent fell in the orange category.

Niles Supt. Michael Lindley said primarily two things negatively impacted his district’s color ranking: graduation rate and participation in the MEAP test by Cedar Lane students.

While Niles had a good four-year graduation rate at the high school (97 percent), that percentage dipped to 73.4 percent when accounting for alternative and adult education programs.

Also, the Cedar Lane alternative school program fell below the percentage for students required to take the MEAP test.

“Those are the two things that really hurt the district,” said Lindley, adding that they would take steps to rectify the situation.

All three districts had at least one school designated as a Focus School, which means that particular school is among the 10 percent of schools statewide with the widest achievement gap between highest and lowest performing students.

Area schools receiving Focus School status are:

• Niles — Ballard Elementary

• Brandywine — Merritt Elementary

• Buchanan — Moccasin Elementary and Buchanan Middle School

Jarpe said he was disappointed to see Merritt remain a Focus School because its students recorded the highest math and third highest reading scores in Berrien County on the last MEAP test.

“Indicators gave us pretty high hopes that we would be moved off of the focus school category,” Jarpe said. “The calculation still shows that the gap still exists, so we have to address that.”

Buchanan Supt. Andrea van der Laan said the scorecard could be confusing and contradictory at times. She is encouraging parents to attend the first parent-teacher organization meeting to learn more about the findings.

“We made all the expected gains in every school in every subject but the overall scorecard of the district is yellow because we are still working on that bottom 30 percent,” she said.

Lindley said Niles would work to close the gap by offering a new after-school program focusing on the students most at risk at all Ballard, Eastside and Howard elementary schools.

“We want to make sure we are being proactive and do not have a similar situation down the road,” he said.

The state scorecard can be accessed at the website MISchoolData.org. Click on Dashboard and School Report Card button on the left and then search