April
2005
Dear Community Member:
On January
8, 2002, President Bush signed the No
Child Left Behind Act of 2001 into law.
This act requires that all states and school districts in receipt
of Title I assistance must, by 2003, issue annual “report cards” to
parents. The purpose of the report card is to give parents information
about their child’s school in terms of academic achievement and the
professional qualifications of its teachers.
By making this information available each year, parents will learn
about their school’s goals and student performance.
I believe it is important for all members of the community to have
access to the same information.
Enclosed you will find copies of each of the Pentucket Regional
School District’s “school” report cards and a “district” card
that consolidates all of the data. Included
is information about the qualifications of the teachers on each school’s
faculty. This information is
divided into two parts: (1) the percentage of teachers who are certified
or licensed to teach in Massachusetts and (2) the percentage of classes
taught by teachers who are highly qualified in core academic areas such as
mathematics, science, reading, history, English language arts, etc. Both
pieces of information are intended to help you understand the backgrounds
and preparation of the teachers who are working with your child.
As you will see, most if not all, teachers in the school are
certified and licensed. Most
teachers meet the state’s new standard, “highly qualified.”
According to the No Child Left Behind initiative, teachers
who are highly qualified are those that hold a valid
Massachusetts
license AND demonstrate subject matter competency in the areas they teach.
Those who do not meet this rigorous standard are either working, via a
waiver granted by the Massachusetts Department of Education, or are
long-term or permanent substitutes. While
qualified to teach within
Massachusetts
, certain teachers are now in the process of demonstrating subject matter
competency through additional coursework.
No Child Left Behind
requires that all teachers be highly qualified by the end of the 2005-2006
school year, and thus what you will see in the percentages are indications
of how far each school has to go in order to comply with this deadline.
No Child Left Behind
also requires that test results for reading and mathematics be reported
annually. The information in
this report card summarizes how students did on the last round of MCAS
examinations. The data is
broken down by grade level, subject area, and the performances of
different subgroups, or learning populations in the school such as
students with disabilities. This
information is similar to what parents received about their child’s MCAS
scores in November. Now these
data have been added together to provide a snapshot of how the students in
the district’s schools have performed as a whole.
Additionally
you will find information about how well Pentucket schools are doing
compared with each other and to its performance in past years.
The “Proficiency Index” (PI) scores for Mathematics and English
Language Arts are part of
Massachusetts
’ School Performance Rating system.
This system has been set up to comply with the accountability
provisions of No Child Left Behind which require, among other things, that each
school make adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward meeting a national goal
of all students being “proficient” in mathematics and English by the
year 2013-2014. The
Proficiency scores and AYP ratings in the student achievement data are
meant to signal whether or not our school is on target to meet this goal
or whether it has fallen behind and is “in need of improvement.”
The information describing student performance
shows that all of the district’s schools have made Adequate Yearly
Progress (AYP) for English Language Arts and Mathematics for 5 consecutive
years.
These
school report cards are designed to help you be an informed consumer.
A complete district report card for our school system is included
for you to review. These
report cards are also available on our district’s website at
www.prsd.org.
In closing, please know that we are prepared to help you further
should you have more questions about what this report card means. Please
feel free to call me if you need additional assistance.
Sincerely,
John D. MacLean, Jr., Ed.D.
Superintendent
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