Spring bonus for schools

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT-MESA -- They’re in the money.

By spring, schools in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District can

expect $870,009 in state funds in the mail.

Gov. Gray Davis’ office decided Wednesday to dole out the dough to

schools that met their target scores on the Academic Performance Index.

On the list of beneficiaries were 19 of the district’s 29 schools.

The checks, which schools can expect to receive in late March or early

April, are from the Governor’s Performance Awards Program.

It is a competitive program established in the state budget last year

with an allotment of $227 million: $207 million, which was divided among

schools, and $20 million that will go to employees of those schools in

the spring.

The program is based on the Academic Performance Index, the ranking

system mandated by Davis’ Public Schools Accountability Act of 1999,

which lists each public school according to student performance.

Statewide, schools received a score between 200 and 1,000, based on

the Stanford 9 test results. The state has set a target score of 800 for

every school. Each school that ranks below 800 is required to improve its

score by 5% each year until it reaches 800. Schools that receive an 800

or higher are expected to maintain or improve that score each year.

To be eligible for the governor’s award program, schools that have a

rank of 800 or higher must improve by at least one point.

That criteria left some of Newport-Mesa’s higher achieving schools off

the list.

Andersen Elementary School in Newport Beach, for instance, dropped two

points this year from its position as No. 1 in the county.

So despite the school’s score of 931, it will receive no money.

The incentive program awards schools that score below 800 if they

increased their scores between 1999 and 2000 by the target 5%.

Schools serving students in kindergarten through eighth grade needed

95% of their students to have taken the Stanford 9 exams to be eligible,

and 90% of high school students were required to take the test.

And there is one more crucial piece, said Peggy Anatol, the district’s

director of curriculum and assessment for Newport-Mesa: Schools also

needed to show student improvement across the board.

“All subgroups had to make their targets too,” she said.

Ethnic and socioeconomic subgroups monitored by the state needed to

account for 80% of the school’s improvement.

“They can’t pour all the gas on the GATE kids,” she said, referring to

the Gifted And Talented Education program. “They can’t lose the, say,

Asian population because they don’t understand.”

The money, while welcome, won’t be as much as originally expected.

When the state Department of Education calculated how many of

California’s nearly 7,000 schools had earned the awards, the reward per

student dropped from an estimated $150 per pupil to $63.

The money will be spent for “school-wide improvement.” While how those

funds will be used is still undecided, the decisions will be made by each

school’s site council, not district officials.

At Rea Elementary School, where a check for $42,234 is anxiously

awaited, Principal Ken Killian said he is planning to give everyone an

opportunity to suggest how the bonus should be spent.

“What we’ll probably do is start with all the teachers getting

involved at each grade level,” he said.

After he gets the teachers’ brainstorming, Killian said, he will ask

the school leadership team and PTA board to do the same.

All those recommendations will then be presented to the site council,

he said, adding that although he doesn’t know where or how the money will

be used, he does have an idea.

“I know there is one thing that seems to be of interest to staff and

parents,” he said. “We’re all finding the computers we purchased . . . to

be slow. So one consideration may be to try to replace the older

computers.”

All 19 schools that made the cut had a sneaking suspicion they would

be on the list for funds but couldn’t be sure until it was announced.

“We knew from preliminary reports that we probably would be involved,

but you never know until you receive official notice,” Killian said.

BOX

WHO’S GETTING WHAT

Here’s a list of the Newport-Mesa schools that will receive state

money for meeting target scores:

Adams Elementary, $33,623

California Elementary, $25,011

Corona del Mar High, $105,997

Davis Elementary, $56,291

Ensign Intermediate, $72,564

Estancia High, $68,828

Harbor View Elementary, $33,053

Kaiser Elementary, $46,603

Lincoln Elementary, $47,173

Mariners Elementary, $46,096

Newport Elementary, $34,509

Paularino Elementary, $29,000

Pomona Elementary, $37,612

Rea Elementary, $42,234

Sonora Elementary, $23,555

TeWinkle Middle, $63,889

Victoria Elementary, $27,481

Whittier Elementary, $38,625

Wilson Elementary, $37,865

District Total: $870,009