Newport-Mesa school rankings get sweeter

Deirdre Newman

NEWPORT-MESA -- The Newport-Mesa Unified School District celebrated

its continued academic success Wednesday, with one elementary school

again ranking at the top of the county and one Costa Mesa school finally

exceeding a benchmark figure as statewide scores were released.

“I commend the schools and their principals and the teaching staff for

the growth that they are continuing to show,” school board President Judy

Franco said after the release of the Academic Performance Index.

But district officials also expressed some concern that four schools

saw a decline in their statewide rank.

The Academic Performance Index, or API, was put in place by Gov. Gray

Davis to make schools more accountable. It is based on tests taken in the

spring and establishes a base score for each school from 200 to 1,000,

assigns statewide rankings from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest, and

mandates a growth target for the following year for schools scoring less

than 800.

Schools are also ranked against other schools with similar

demographics and socioeconomic standings.

This is the first year the API scores are based on criteria other than

the Stanford 9 test. This year, the API base also includes the California

Standards Test in English Language Arts.

Seven Newport-Mesa schools received top rankings of 10 -- one more

than last year. Harbor View Elementary School in Corona del Mar earned

the highest score of all elementary schools in the county at 922, a score

that was off slightly from its previous year’s 936.

Newport Coast, the district’s newest school, received a rank of 10 its

first year to the delight of Principal Monique VanZeeBroeck. Students

there took the test in the spring after being on their new campus for

about two months.

“We’re very pleased for a new school to have a ranking of 10,”

VanZeeBroeck said. “We want to be world class, want to know how we can

improve and move forward.”

California Elementary School, the only Costa Mesa school to exceed 800

with a base score of 808, also was the first to meet the statewide

target. Principal Jane Holm attributed the growth to a committed

partnership with parents and a thorough analysis of the previous year’s

results.

“We were trying to improve from last year, and we did a really good

job of analyzing the test scores from last year and looking at what holes

we need to fill,” Holm said.

The four schools that saw a decline in their statewide ranks are

Woodland, Paularino, Pomona and Ensign. Pomona has received an

under-performing schools grant to help boost student achievement, said

Peggy Anatol, the school district’s director of kindergarten through

12th-grade assessment.

However, none of the district schools ranked in the bottom percentile.

“That is outstanding,” Franco said. “It shows the determination and

time and effort that have been put into it by our principals and teaching

staff and that our children can and will succeed.”

In future years, the API will also include results from other

standards tests and the California High School Exit Exam.

* Deirdre Newman covers education. She may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at o7 deirdre.newman@latimes.comf7 .