KINGSPORT – Kingsport City Schools is pleased to announce that the school system has met the Adequate Yearly Progress standard as required by No Child Left Behind for the 2010-11 school year and has Good Standing status for 2011-12.
The Tennessee Department of Education released its annual progress report today listing which Tennessee schools and school systems met performance standards for the 2010-11 school year. In accordance with No Child Left Behind, Tennessee reports which schools have made -adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward the goal of 100 percent of students being proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014.
Especially noteworthy in this years results is the fact that John Sevier Middle School, identified for improvement in 2010, came off the Target list and has received a status of Good Standing for 2011-12. Sevier had been targeted for improvement in the subgroup of Students with Disabilities, meaning that students in this subgroup had performed below the AYP benchmark. We are thrilled that the hard work by the students, teachers, staff, and families has proven to be successful. The use of 90-minute instructional blocks, along with richer, more specific mathematics and language arts instruction in special education classes, and teacher collaboration has helped drive this improvement, said John Sevier Middle School Principal Cookie Greer.
We are pleased to have met the AYP benchmarks for the system as a whole, and are especially excited about the successes achieved at John Sevier Middle School. Our teachers and students have worked hard and we appreciate their efforts, as well as the dedication of our parents and support staff, to facilitate student academic success, said Dr. Richard Kitzmiller, Superintendent of Schools.
Introducing new academic standards and assessments always creates a level of anxiety as to how students will perform under the new measures, said Assistant Superintendent Dr. Damon Cathey. While our work on standards and assessments continues, our teachers have truly met the challenge. Their work on aspects of teaching and content knowledge, as well as learning and meeting individual student needs, has yielded impressive results. We are proud of their hard work and we are proud of our students performance.
All Kingsport City Schools, with the exception of Dobyns-Bennett High School, met federal No Child Left Behind Adequate Yearly Progress for the 2010-2011 school year. Dobyns-Bennett was targeted for improvement in the subgroup of Students with Disabilities, meaning that students in this subgroup performed below the AYP benchmark for Reading/Language Arts plus Writing.
Tennessee uses the Target status as an early warning signal so that schools can take corrective action to avoid becoming a High Priority school. Dobyns-Bennett is addressing special education needs in a variety of ways. Targeted classes are being assigned both an English and a Special Education teacher for additional student support. Curriculum and pacing guides have also been adjusted to emphasize standards that are most critical for student academic success. Additionally, quality formative assessments and teacher professional development opportunities have been implemented to best identify and meet student needs.
This is an opportunity for our school and our district to put in place additional systematic supports to help these students, said Dobyns-Bennett Principal Dr. Chris Hampton. We have been very intentional in how we have made teachers classroom assignments to best meet the individual needs of our students.
Schools and districts must meet performance standards in all designated subgroups to be deemed in good standing under federally mandated No Child Left Behind. KCS administrators and teaching staff have been reviewing the AYP achievement data and are planning for continued improvement. The data is used by teachers to help boost individual student achievement and to enhance their overall teaching strategies.
For more information, contact Dory Creech, Director of Accountability at (423) 378-2125.
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