First of two parts
Most public schools on the North Olympic Peninsula will have to send letters home to parents saying they have failed.
All but one — Neah Bay Elementary — have been deemed failing schools because not all of their students met grade-level standards during the 2013-14 school year.
Two others — Brinnon and Queets-Clearwater — are so small that they are exempt from federal regulations.
Parents of students in every school in the Port Angeles, Sequim, Port Townsend, Chimacum, Cape Flattery, Quillayute Valley and Crescent school districts will be receiving those letters in the next few weeks.
The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 required schools to increase each year the percentage of students meeting grade-level standards on state math and reading exams.
This spring, that increase reached its peak, with 100 percent passage in all grade levels required.
At the same time, a federal waiver that allowed Washington state to set its own standards was repealed in April, leaving public schools and districts open to federal sanctions.
That means schools receiving federal Title I funding that have not obtained the standard are required to send letters to parents saying the schools have received a failing grade.
Neah Bay Elementary, a Cape Flattery School District school with 160 students in kindergarten through fifth grade, was one of only 260 schools in the state to get a passing grade by federal standards, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
“It’s just a lot of dedication and hard work on the part of the teachers, staff, the community and the kids taking responsibility for their own learning,” Principal Alice Murner said.
The Cape Flattery School Board’s continued financial support in keeping class sizes small — 16 or 17 students per classroom — has been a major key in giving every student individual instruction for success, she said.
Statewide, 88.1 percent of schools — 1,916 schools —failed to meet the 2014 adequate yearly progress standards, even as many state test scores remained steady or improved.
Results of testing are broken down by ethnic group and poverty level, and if one category of students fails to meet designated goals, the whole school fails — which explains how test scores can improve their scores without meeting the measurements imposed by No Child Left Behind.
Schools with fewer than 10 students per grade are exempt from the standards because they have too few students to release schoolwide results without revealing individual student test results and receive automatic passing grades, said Nathan Olson, spokesman for OSPI.
Washington state was the first in the nation to lose its waiver from the federal Department of Education.
Forty-three states and the District of Columbia have been granted waivers under the law, and none is expected to meet annual requirements.
Monday: Three Peninsula schools told to take drastic action.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
