School Focuses on Test Scores

By Grace Rauh, STAFF WRITER

UNION CITY — When the staff at Barnard-White Middle School learned the school faced sanctions after falling short of federal standards for two consecutive years, they doled out blame, especially on the No Child Left Behind laws that set the testing requirements.

But attitudes have changed in the weeks since the news broke, and now, teachers and administrators are busy brainstorming ways to raise student test scores and get off the federal “program improvement” list, Principal Gus Samaniego said.

The New Haven school district also is working with Barnard-White staff members to raise test scores. Samaniego said he is confident the school will meet its goals.

The school was placed on the program improvement list because only 20 percent of the school’s low-income students scored at proficient levels or

above in math, more than 6 percentage points below the level required.

Only schools receiving Title I funds for low-income students are labeled program improvement schools when they fail to meet federal benchmarks.

The district’s plan could include grouping students by performance levels for instruction, offering teachers and administrators additional training, and closely monitoring student achievement, among other things.

It is an “instrument for us to look at the entire program,” Samaniego said.

Having to adopt such a plan is stirring emotions among parents and teachers who are upset their school is said to be failing.

School board member Jenn Stringer, who has one child attending Barnard-White and another who went there, broke down in tears during the school board meeting Tuesday. She said the school has delivered for her children, and she wants to make sure it delivers for all students.

“You couldn’t find a harder-working group of teachers,” she said.

The designation gives students the option to transfer to other New Haven schools, with the school footing the bill for transportation costs.

But only 15 of the school’s more than 850 students have left.

Dave Ellison, a Barnard-White teacher who also writes a column for The Argus, pointed out that the school’s test scores have been rising steadily for the past few years, just not fast enough to keep up with federal standards.

“I want to make it very clear that Barnard-White does not have a problem,” he told the board Tuesday night. “What we have is yet another challenge.”