EDMONTON — Those who attended the Metcalfe County Board of Education meeting Monday night heard an update on State Education Commissioner Terry Holliday’s recent visit to the Metcalfe County School District.

Holliday toured the district on March 10 to apologize for the inadvertent release of a list of schools to the media that have been identified as persistently low-achieving schools. Metcalfe County High School appeared on the list, along with Caverna High School and eight other schools.

“I think we need to understand there are two groups of schools that have been identified as persistently low-achieving schools,” said Pat Hurt, superintendent. “One group of schools are those Title I schools that [need] improvement or corrective action or restructuring.”

 Title I funded schools receive federal dollars based on their average daily attendance.

While Metcalfe County High School is not a Title I school, the school district does receive Title I funds. Until recently only Metcalfe County elementary schools received Title I money. This year the school district included Metcalfe County Middle School in with those that receive Title I funding, and that was due to the school having a free and reduced lunch rate above 75 percent, she said.

In addition to looking at Title I and non-Title I schools, state education officials took into consideration those schools that had missed adequate yearly progress for three years. They also averaged those school’s math and reading scores and gave each of the 70 schools in the state that did not make adequate year progress.

The state chose five Title I schools and five non-Title I schools for the list that either fell in the bottom five or the bottom 5 percent. 

“These are the 10 schools that you have been reading about recently in the paper that have been identified as eligible for school improvement grants,” Hurt said.

Originally there were 12 schools named. The first group has been described as being a placeholder list. Two schools have recently been omitted from the list. They are Henry County High School and Iroquois High School in Louisville.

“When the School Improvement Grant funds became available, we re-ran the data to find the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools,” said Lisa Gross, spokesperson for the Kentucky Department of Education. “The list that we developed is slightly different from the placeholder list that was used earlier, and that’s just a function of data and numbers of schools.”

Hurt presented a slide showing MCHS’ assessment scores over a 10-year period. The school had a total score of 54.7 in 1999 on the state assessment. In 2005 it had a significant jump in scores from 59.6 to 64.8.

“From that point on we were kind of in the throes of gaining inch by inch, not making the great leaps we needed to make in the time and space we needed to make them, but we were from 1999 improving — not losing ground,” she said. “When we don’t improve with leaps and bounds you end up getting behind in the accountability system because the target keeps moving further out and you have to, as a school, keep pace with it.”

In 2009 Senate Bill 1 changed the way the categories of arts and humanities, practical living and vocational studies and writing portfolios were counted.

“You can see that from 2008 to 2009 we had the biggest drop we’ve had in some time,” she said. “Everything that has happened since this time in terms of what that means with respect of low-achieving schools is those 10 schools you’ve seen in different articles in different newspapers were [based] on one year of test data only and it was 2009.”

When the new measurement system kicked in, MCHS was identified as a school needing intervention for the first time in a 10-year history, she said.

All of the schools on the list will undergo school-level and district-level audits.

“The whole notion is to determine the leadership capacity at both levels to lead the schools to improvement,” Hurt said. “Based on the finding in the audit report we will be given directions about what our next step must be.”

In addition, the school will be eligible to receive $500,000 per year in school improvement grant money. The school will continue to receive the money over a three-year period if it makes improvements each year.

Hurt presented a slide showing a list of schools that could have made the list if there wasn’t the qualifier for having five non-Title I and five Title I funded schools.

“I’m pointing this out for a reason, and many of you may think I’m splitting hairs, but it matters when you’re one of those schools. Only two of the five non-Title schools are actually in the bottom 10 in the state when you consider all schools, all scores and having not met AYP for three consecutive years,” she said.

MCHS is eligible because it is in the bottom five of 70 schools that are non-Title I schools. That does not mean MCHS is the very lowest school in the state, she said.

“Since there is no one getting in front of that message, I decided to step into that role tonight,” Hurt said. “When you read that we’re among the 10 lowest-performing schools, yes we are, as it pertains to our eligibility for a school improvement grant. When it is pertaining to all schools, all scores that failed to meet AYP in three consecutive years, we actually are not. That is just a minor distinction, but I felt like it was important enough to point out.”

MCHS is not where it needs to be on state assessment scores, and is probably one of the bottom 20 schools in the state, she said.

The district is welcoming any and all assistance from the state and federal governments. In order for the district to qualify for the money it must adopt a reform model.

“We have a choice of the turn-around model, the restart model, the closure model or the transformation model. In our situation and in the conversation I’ve had from the commissioner to the members that are in our district, today it is more than likely gonna be between the turnaround and the transformation model for Metcalfe County High School,” she said.

Despite the label bestowed on the school, Hurt said the district will make the most of the experience and accept the challenge.

Steve Thompson, chairman of the Metcalfe County Board of Education, said the high school’s test scores were discussed at a retreat in October.

“We had a very thorough discussion with the high school principal and the site-based council about what it was going to take to get things moving,” he said.

They asked Hurt to intervene, which he defined as being “a pretty drastic step.”

Hurt and her support staff took immediate action to help remedy the problem, but when House Bill 176 “came to light and we made this notorious list” they began looking into independent support services.

The board employed Steve Schank and Associates to get the high school “kick started,” Thompson said.

“It’s basically all hands on deck at the high school right now,” Thompson said. “But, folks, we are going to be better for this. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

Thompson said the problem will be fixed, but said it is an issue that has to be addressed by the community.

“We’ve got to have parent and community involvement for our kids and our teachers. I said in an interview the other day our teachers can’t do this by themselves,” he said. “They’ve got to have encouragement, whatever it takes.”