State board finds Soule Intermediate made last year’s goals

    Contrary to earlier reports, Soule Intermediate Center did make Adequate Yearly Progress in meeting a series of educational benchmarks last year.
    USD 443 officials were notified November 2007 that the school failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress in 2006-07, based on state assessment results from the previous spring, public information director Seth Eckelman said Tuesday. The school district appealed the Kansas Department of Education's findings, and the department then recalculated its data.
    Based on that review, the department concluded that Soule Intermediate had, in fact, made AYP for 2006-07, Eckelman said.
    The USD 443 Board of Education learned about the change during Monday's meeting.
    "We were excited last night when we got the word," board member Ethel Peterson said in a brief interview Tuesday.
    Soule Intermediate principal Greg Preston said Wednesday he was pleased about the change and felt some sense of vindication.
    "We are obviously very, very excited," he said. "We felt like the kids did a great job, and the staff did an excellent job of getting them prepared."
    The state's online report card for Soule Intermediate has been updated to include the change, and that information is available at the Department of Education's Web site, www.ksde.org.
    The error resulted from a problem with the state's data, Judi Miller, assistant director of title programs and services with the Department of Education, said Wednesday.
    "We actually found a slight glitch, and so their data actually is such that they are making AYP," she said.
    She said the data actually showed that Soule had made AYP in all areas — math, reading and attendance.
    Miller said schools are currently finishing testing for the 2007-08 school year, so the state won't have information on which ones failed to make AYP until this fall.
    Adequate Yearly Progress is a way of determining whether individual schools, districts and the state have made enough progress in improving student achievement. Progress is measured by participation in state assessment tests, attendance rates and graduation rates in the case of high schools.
    Overall, the state failed to make AYP in 2006-07, according to information from the Department of Education's Web site.
    In other business Monday, the school board accepted a $19,500 donation from the Dodge City High School Basketball Booster Club to help purchase two new scorer's tables for the DCHS Fieldhouse.
    The district received a $36,500 bid from the Salina-based company PowerAd to refurbish the old scorer's tables and supply new ones, according to information provided by the district.
    The DCHS athletic department will pay for refurbishing the old tables, which will be used for volleyball and in the auxiliary gym for junior varsity and freshman basketball, and put $15,000 toward buying the new tables. The booster club's donation will cover the remaining cost.

Reach Eric Swanson at (620) 408-9917 or e-mail him at eric.swanson@dodgeglobe.com.