How Your Child's School is Classified

During a recent call to the Pennsylvania Department of Education regarding the status of the school my children were to attend I was completely floored by some information that may put a spotlight on what you need to know about your child's school.

As I homeschool, rather than have my children subjected to a school in a "school improvement II status" and extremely low, maximum of 36.5%, proficiency ratings, I began researching the school's AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) status. Last year they were in a "school improvement II status". This year when I began researching I found that they had moved to a "warning status". When I contacted the AYP regarding this I was informed that the school had been deemed a "new school", as apparently a new telephone number makes the K-8 school somehow two schools. Please keep in mind this school houses children from kindergarten to eighth grade, all under the same roof with a door, which isn't closed, separating the children in grades K-5 from the children in grades 6-8. There are two principals in this school, one for the K-5 side and one for the 6-8 side. Other than a phone number being added for grades 6-8 there have been no changes at this school. Yet now that they have an additional telephone number it seems they have been deemed two schools and as such warrant a new school "warning status". Needless to say, I was completed livid when I learned that a simple phone number can bring a school from a "school improvement status" up to a "warning status".

This school has been on the downslide for more than five years and the fact that the simple addition of a telephone line can bring this school from a "school improvement II status" to that of a new school is utterly outrageous. Do our children mean so little to the Pennsylvania Department of Education that schools can redeem themselves from their poor status by adding a phone line? When I broached this subject with the gentleman I was speaking with he had no comment. Is this how our country is run? Are our children thought so little of that they be condemned to attend a low proficiency school because of a phone line? I've always heard that our children are our future. How can this be true when children are forced, yes, I do mean forced, to go to a school with a proficiency rating less than 40%?

So should you move to another city or state please do yourself the favor of checking into the AYP for that school system, going back a number of years. Should you find that the school went from a poor status to a warning status in a year you may want to ask yourself, and then a member of the Department of Education in your state, why this school improved so quickly. Don't let your children be subjected to a school system which will allow a severely low rated school to change it's status by the simple addition of a telephone line.

My children are my future. And for the reasons I have given they are homeschooled and exceeding expectations of a grade level higher than they would be in Lafayette School, where there are no gifted programs due to the poor proficiency of the school. Don't your children deserve the best education they can get? Mine do and that is why they are homeschooled.

Remember, before you sign your child up in a new school, or if you have problems with the current school you have your children in, check the previous five to eight years AYP and look for anything that jumps out as odd to you.

This is Title I school, from which you should be able to transfer your children to another school within the district. This is not the case here in Uniontown, PA. There was an letter in the paper from the Uniontown Area School District Superintendent refusing to transfer any children from Lafayette, though it was worded more of you go where you live, no exceptions. Though it is clearly stated in the Pennsylvania Department of Education that overcrowding cannot be used as an excuse not to transfer your child from a Title I school that is the excuse I received when I requested my children be transferred to a school they didn't have to "dumb down" to go to.

For the sake of your children spend a little time on the AYP website and do the due diligence for your children because they deserve so much more opportunity than mine have been given here in Uniontown, PA.

http://www.uniontown.k12.pa.us/