Official: Students may be withdrawn from AYP

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — It may be just a matter of miscommunication, but it is a little-known fact that parents can withdraw students from the Annual Yearly Progress testing currently under way in New Mexico schools.

Parents have the right to do so, said Beverly Friedman, spokeswoman at the state's Public Education Department. Administration officials with the Grants-Cibola County Schools agreed.

Some parents within the school district however may not be aware of this right, even though school district officials say they try to inform parents in meetings early in the year when AYP testing is discussed.

The AYP testing is a mandated program which is part of the federal government's “No Child Left Behind” program and schools that received federal and state funding are required to participate.

Schools that fail the annual test can be placed on probation, even be taken over by the state if they fail several years in a row and show no ability to turn around.
Schools within the Grants-Cibola district are in no such state, and in fact several have improved during the past couple of years, Friedman said.

Superintendent Kilino Marquez, said the testing allows the school district to monitor the progress of the students so data can be used to help instruction.

A school district employee said the results from the testing in February, which are received six to seven months later, are not timely enough to help the district affect curriculum to help students a lot.

“Those students backslide during summer and lose a lot of what they have learned,” the employee said.

“That employee is right,” Marquez said. “We know that AYP does not give us information as quickly as we like it.
“Because of that, there is now in place, a system to monitor students every week to two weeks, and we use that short cycle testing program to change instruction during the school year to help the students,” he said.

What we need to be able to do is to determine what we have done and what we have not done to help the teacher,” he said.

Also, some teachers just do not like testing, he said.
“AYP does not report any individual student in any negative way. It helps us know what we don't know so we can plan better instruction for that child,” said Gloria Chavez, assistant superintendent.

Two parents of students at Mesa View Elementary School say they did not know about this right to withdraw from testing.

Sally Tiger Butcher, said she has never been apprised of any such information, and she is on the school's Web site for parents all the time.

Mary Ann Gurule, who has three children in the third and fifth grades, said she does not remember being told in meetings by the district that as a parent she can withdraw students from AYP testing.

The district holds meetings at every school early in the school year and two districtwide meetings, one each on the west side and the east side during the year, and at these meetings AYP is discussed, said Amy Gonzales, the testing coordinator for the school district.

She said parents who are at these meetings, and every school employee, has been informed about this right.
Chavez and Gonzales said parents are no shows at many meetings.

“One meeting on the east side had 40 parents,” Chavez said. “Another one, on the west side had no parents at all.”

To contact reporter Jim Tiffin call (505) 287-2197 or e-mail: jtiffin.independent@yahoo.com.