By JOSEPH KELLARD
The Accountability Status Report for Oceanside issued by the state education department on March 9 listed OHS among 67 Long Island schools to have failed to meet AYP requirements. But school officials said its actual error was in failing to account for a certain number of students who took the English regents test.
The accountability report showed that there were 38 special ed students tested, when in fact 42 out of 43 students in the high school special ed program took the test.
Thus OHS meet the state's requirement that 95 percent of students within a categorical group be tested, officials said.
According to Corinne Banach, assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and research, among the five children that went unreported, one never took the regents English test at all because she was hospitalized. Three students took a local assessment test, and another took the state alternative assessment.
"For whatever reason, the special ed data for these very, very disabled students went unreported," Banach said. "...The actuality is we have our adequate yearly progress that we netted by 15 points higher than what we were required to. But we were singled out because the software showed that less than 95 percent had been tested, when we had met that requirement as well."
Every school district in the state received an accountability report, required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The act makes school districts accountable for boosting test performances each year, not only for enrollments as a whole, but also for students of various racial groups and for those income levels, and for those enrolled in special education and with limited proficiency in English.
The state requires that school districts test 95 percent of its students in each category, otherwise the districts go on a list that could lead to sanctions if they fail to correct the problems after two consecutive years.
One purpose of the student subgroup analysis is to determine if students who perform below standards in any school tend to fall into particular groups, such as minority students, limited English proficient students, or economically disadvantaged students, according to the state education department's Web site. One intent of the law - a hallmark of President George W. Bush's administration - is to ensure schools meet the needs of minority students overlooked in the past.
"You're only as good as the data that's inputted," Banach concluded. "It's just unfortunate that this had to happen. We feel confident that we now to look for, and we'll make sure that our data, the clerical aspect, is double- and tripled-checked."
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