More Urbandale Schools Cited in No Child Left Behind

Two more Urbandale schools have been placed on the No Child Left Behind federal watch list for failing to meet proficiency ratings in reading and math.

Both the high school and Olmsted Elementary School have been placed on the watch list, the first time they have been cited since No Child Left Behind became law in 2001, the Des Moines Register reports.

The school district has two other schools on the list, Karen Acres Elementary School and Urbandale Middle School, which has failed to show significant improvement to be removed from the Schools in Need of Assistance list for the fifth consecutive years.

Schools are placed the watch list if they don’t meet proficiency goals in a given year and on SINA if they fail to meet the standards thereafter.

No Child Left Behind requires that schools be proficient in reading and math by 2014 in order to continue receiving federal money.

Superintendent Doug Stilwell said the school district needs to respond in a way “that is thoughtful and that puts students first” and to avoid what he called “knee-jerk reaction.”

He said he’s not a fan of the No Child Left Behind law because measures are constantly moving. “... the thing about No Child Left Behind is that it makes you have a knee-jerk reaction,” he said. “The first thing you think about is how to get off that list.”

Districtwide, 85 percent of students in grades 3-5 are proficient in both reading and math. But the percentages drop to 73 percent in reading and 81 percent in math in the middle school grades 6-8, then rebound in 11th grade (the only high school grade measured) to 87 percent in reading and 85 percent in math.

Stilwell said he’s not sure what happens to students in the middle school years.