Ocean View needs board’s guidance on state fund request
Marissa Espino
HUNTINGTON BEACH -- Ocean View School District officials say they will
apply for state funds to participate in a new accountability program if
the school board favors the move.
Sun View and Oak View were identified last week as among the 430 school
that scored in the bottom half of the Stanford 9 statewide test results
in 1998 and 1999. That designation makes them eligible for Immediate
Intervention Underperforming School Program, designed by the California
Department of Education.
“We have not talked with our school board yet,” said Karen Colby, the
district’s director of curriculum and instruction. “We really need
direction and permission from them. We don’t know what is required or
entailed in volunteering [for the program]. At this point we are just
exploring the possibility.”
If the district chooses to apply, the schools will receive a $50,000
grant to develop a plan to improve student achievement.
The schools will then be evaluated by district and state committees
that could have the authority to intervene if improvements do not result.
If the state does intervene, the superintendent of instruction would
take over and the principal would be reassigned, according to a
department report.
“This program is designed to give local districts and local schools an
opportunity to improve on their own,” said Pat McCabe, an administrator
in the state’s Office of Policy and Evaluation. “This program allows them
to have one year of planning and then funding for what they have planned.
If they don’t change in three years, then the district has had its
chance. In fact, they do lose control at that point.”
McCabe said that if enough schools haven’t applied by today’s deadline,
the state will choose schools to participate.
Within the past year, Colby said the district has designed an
instructional program to increase student achievement, but will still
look into the accountability program.
Colby also said the program’s intervention conditions appear extreme.
“It seems drastic,” she said, “and that is one of the reasons we need
to understand it better.”
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