High school addresses poor accountability report

Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS) officials dove into the Massachusetts Department of Education accountability report during Monday’s meeting, largely in response to statements made by Doug Ruskin during an earlier West Tisbury finance committee meeting.

During a meeting last week, Ruskin brought up the so-called “report card” during a discussion of the school budget. Ruskin questioned the district’s emphasis on a new sports complex when it appeared the educational programs were lacking.

The in-depth presentation by MVRHS Principal Sara Dingley elucidated just how complex and ever-changing the accountability report is, and how scores in the report are not the final say on student achievement. The accountability report attempts to capture areas where districts are making progress, and where there needs to be improvement, by essentially weighing schools against themselves. Each district is graded based on its own work to achieve target indicators. 

According to Dingledy, the information compiled in the report was initially presented in October 2019, with the high school falling in the 30th percentile for progress made toward improvement targets.

She noted that this report includes three-year lagging-indicator data going back to 2017.

When Dingledy first arrived at the high school during the 2016-2017 school year, she said, there was great success in student achievement, but some significant gaps between subpopulations and subgroups, and how they perform compared with the general student population.

Several initiatives over the past few years have worked to create additional supports for English Language Learner (ELL) students, such as hiring an additional English as a second language (ESL) teacher, adding an interpreter position, and creating an afterschool program for students to recover credits.

But Dingledy said the high school was counting on those efforts to pay off in 2020, with positive progress indicated in the accountability report.

“Myself and many others were really counting on results paying off in 2020 and this year, because of the things we put in place two and three years ago,” Dingledy said. “We don’t have measures, unfortunately, because of the circumstances we found ourselves in last year.”

She noted that the school year was cut short, and the MCAS tests were punted, eliminating a large portion of valuable data that would contribute to the accountability report.

In the accountability report card, MVRHS is labeled as a “district requiring assistance or intervention.”

Dingledy said there are two ways a district can receive this designation: One is the need for broad, comprehensive support based on performance; the other is targeted support if there is a specific need identified.

In the high school’s case, they failed to meet the target of 95 percent MCAS participation in the ELL subgroup by just a few students. This caused the high school to drop to the “targeted support” designation. 

Dingledy said she believes that as of now, the school would be designated as making “moderate progress toward targets.”

One factor Dingledy said affected the 2019 report was the fact that many students who come to the school not knowing English (a rapidly growing population at MVRHS) are required by the state to sit for an MCAS exam if they are in the testing cohort.

But if a student is engaged in language acquisition courses up until that point, and has not taken the necessary coursework to take the exam, Dingledy said she will not seat that student for an MCAS exam.

“Sitting students for tests they aren’t prepared for waters down the test, and builds frustration in students,” Dingledy said, noting that students not sitting for tests affects the participation score on the report card.

Another major element that the high school took a hit on in the report was the four-year cohort, where students are expected to graduate in four years, even if they are 17 when they arrive, or if transcripts from their old schools peg them at a 12th grade level when they really need an additional year to graduate. If a student arrives at the high school at age 17, and graduates at age 21, that affects the completion rate in the accountability report.

Dingledy highlighted some of the positive indicators that the school has seen in the report, such as cutting chronic absenteeism rates in half over two years, and drastically improving advanced coursework completion. 

She also said discipline and culture surrounding in-school infractions, largely made up of substance use infractions, were reduced dramatically. “We believe those indicators, plus passing rates at the 9th grade level, are early indicators of success down the road,” Dingledy said. “This all doesn’t happen instantaneously.”

Each element of the accountability report is scored 0-4, with 0 being a decline in data, and 4 having exceeded the target.

But composite achievement data, according to Dingledy, indicates “a very strong academic program,” although she said there is still plenty of work to be done to meet those goals.

Assistant Superintendent Richie Smith stressed that the accountability report does not look at overall composite achievement of the academic programs or of the students, and just because an indicator receives a score of 1, it doesn’t mean that area is doing poorly. “If you look at overall student population composite achievement scores, you will see that we are right there at the 90th percentile or higher,” Smith said.