Tom McCall misses standard again

Forest Grove upper elementary falls short of key ‘Adequate Yearly Progress’ goal for two consecutive years

By Nancy Townsley

The Forest Grove News-Times, Aug 27, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Chase Allgood / News-Times

Parents walked into Tom McCall East Upper Elementary School Tuesday to get information about the first day of school. Forest Grove students return to class next Wednesday and Thursday.

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For the second year in a row, Forest Grove’s Tom McCall Upper Elementary School fell short of federal Adequate Yearly Progress standards.

The 900-student school, which houses fifth- and sixth-graders, now faces specific sanctions from the U.S. Department of Education.

Tom McCall was one of more than 430 Oregon schools that failed to reach national performance targets in 2007-08, the worst state showing since 2002.

Neil Armstrong Middle School and Forest Grove High School also failed to meet AYP in 2007-08.

Oregon Department of Education officials, who released the latest AYP report on Aug. 4, blamed the poor performance on low middle school exam scores and a higher performance bar set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act for last year.

Forest Grove administrators said the AYP benchmarks were confusing,

“Just looking at this, it sounds as if things are terrible at Tom McCall,” Forest Grove Superintendent Jack Musser told the school board on Monday. “But we met (the standard) in every area except one.”

That area, language arts, has dogged Tom McCall, a Title I school that receives federal funds to help disadvantaged students, since 2006-07, when it first missed the AYP target. The 13 students who did not meet the standard last year were “limited English proficient,” said district assessment coordinator Conrad Sieber.

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