Northfield Elementary School has been listed as one of Vermont’s “persistently low-achieving schools,” according to a report which was issued by the Vermont Department of Education last week.

The report is required to be issued by the federal government under a new regulation from the U.S. Department of Education [USED].

“Vermont’s long standing track record of providing a high quality education for our young people did not exempt us from the latest requirement from the USED to identify our 10 ‘persistently low-achieving’ schools,” said Rae Ann Knopf, Deputy Commissioner at the Vermont Department of Education. “Nor should it prevent us from providing those and other schools with much needed resources and supports to reach our most disadvantaged kids.”

This all comes about because of the stimulus package or American Recovery and Reinvestment Act [ARRA] which allocated $8 million to help low achieving schools in Vermont.

As a result, “low achieving” schools had to be identified as ones who are eligible to receive some of the money.

To be “low achieving” a school has to have done poorly in the 2008 New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) scores for all students, and scores for those schools over the period that NECAP tests have been administered.

The press release came as a surprise to us, said Michele Fagan, Superintendent of Schools here. “We knew the state board was going to issue a report but were surprised when we first found the report referred to on WCAX-TV,” she said. The school district had been assured that they would get a copy before it was issued to the press.

This was important because Northfield has already undertaken a program to address these problems, Ms. Fagan said.

The letter stated that ARRA funds will provide additional resources to support the work of the educators in those schools to help all children succeed.

However, the funds come with conditions.

For Vermont’s 10 highest need schools to receive funds, they must be willing to embrace one of four strictly defined models for school improvement as laid out by the USED.

The four models include [1] closing the school, [2] closing the school and reopening the school under a Charter or Education Management entity, [3] replacing the principal and 50 percent of the teachers or [4] implementing a comprehensive ‘transformation’ model which, if not already significantly underway within the last two years, would also necessitate replacing the principal and implementing systemic reform efforts in the coming years.

Ten schools in Vermont were identified in this group including Northfield Elementary.

“The schools identified still provide a quality education for the majority of their students,” said Commissioner of Education Armando Vilaseca. “In any other state, these schools would not have been identified. But our goal continues to be that all of our schools reach all of our students and these funds provide an opportunity to further support the students that need it the most.”

The 10 schools have all failed to make adequately yearly progress on student assessment tests for the past several years said Mr. Vilaseca.

"I think the funds could really help some Vermont schools to really reach those kids who have the greatest need. You know I do think, as people have said, it comes with some pretty significant conditions, and I think that's different for people, they are not used to that happening," said Deputy Education Commissioner Rae Ann Knopf.

The test scores which were used to come to these conclusions were for tests taken by students up to 2008 and do not include test scores for the school year which is currently underway.

About a year and one half ago, the Northfield Elementary School began a program of improvement which included not only attempting to increase NECAP test scores but to also improve reading comprehension by introducing a new reading program, Ms. Fagan said.

Presently, NECAP scores have stabilized, are not falling further, and there was some slight improvement in the scores this past year, she said.

However, over the long term, just improving test scores is not enough, implementing these other improvements such as the reading program will assure that the students do better, Ms. Fagan stated.