The Observation Deck

DISTRICT EARNS "A" FOR OVERALL STUDENT PROGRESS

The 2013-2014 state report card results are in and the report for Lakewood City Schools shows that the district continues to provide a quality education, earning an overall A for Student Progress, which measures academic gains in our students’ Reading and Math over a year’s time, also known as Value-Added.

The district is particularly proud of the achievement by our most vulnerable students academically. Our students with the lowest 20% of our Math and Reading scores as well as our students with disabilities subgroups both achieved greater than a year’s worth of academic growth, earning an A and B grade, respectively.

In addition to the A for Progress, the district improved its Performance Index rating, moving up from 98.6 out of 120 possible points to 98.8, earning a B. The Performance Index measures how well all students did on all tests. This index shows that 82% of our students scored Proficient or above on the state assessments. Students failed to meet the State Indicator in 4th Grade Math, 5th Grade Reading, Math and Science and 8th Grade Science.

The report card is in a new format of letter grades that was introduced last year and will continue to evolve over the next couple of school years as more measurement categories are added. An overall grade for the district will not be given until the 2015-2016 report.

Other areas of improvement for the district includes 226 of our Gifted Identified students achieving Advanced Plus level in Reading and Math, the highest of the levels of proficiency. Those students took assessments a grade level above their current grade at test time in order to achieve Advanced Plus. There is still work to do, however, in regards to the measurable growth achieved by our students identified as Gifted.

The district’s 4-year graduation rate also improved, from 81.5% to 86.2%. A new graduation rate formula was adopted by the state last year, which requires districts to track students who leave the district, which was not done in the past. The new rates reflect students that were never tracked yet still counted as Lakewood students if they were not reported to be enrolled elsewhere. The district expects this rate to continue to improve as it fine tunes its system to handle such tracking.

The district also is working diligently on closing the achievement gap in Reading and Math for some of our student groups. The measurement of Annual Measurable Objectives (or AMOs), looks at each sub-group and how it performs in relation to all students. The district has been focused on improving the performance of our subgroups, but we still have much work to do in that area.

“We know we have work to do with our subgroups. Lakewood is challenged by the fact that we are one of a minority of suburban school districts that have 9 of the 10 subgroups measured,” said Assistant Superintendent Roxann Ramsey-Caserio. Examples of subgroups include Limited English Proficiency, Economically Disadvantaged, Students with Disabilities and Asian or Pacific Islanders.

“However, we know we are on the right track,” added Ramsey-Caserio, “as we have made significant progress with our lowest 20% achieving students and our students with disabilities.”

On the building level, four of our schools earned A's for overall progress in Math and Reading: Garfield and Harding middle schools and Emerson and Roosevelt elementary schools. High schools did not receive a rating for overall progress for the 2013-2014 Report Card. This measure will be phased in for high schools.

Lakewood City Academy, the district’s community charter school, continues to provide the tools necessary for our students that need an alternate education setting to succeed. In the latest Report Card, LCA exceeded the standards overall for measures met.

For a complete look at the district and building results click here.

http://www.lakewoodcityschools.org/districtNewsArticle.aspx?artID=2666#sthash.ZVFzJ7FQ.oTgDVRMp.dpbs