Town hall meeting Town hall meeting (March 26, 2004)

MV-W officials answer questions about teaching standards, federal law

By Dan Stapleton

Mountain View-Whisman School District officials held their fourth town hall style meeting at Castro Elementary on Tuesday night, giving parents and the community a chance to voice any concerns and questions.

Facilitating this week's meeting was Superintendent Jim Negri, school board President Rose Filicetti and trustee Carol Fisher. About 30 community members, as well as a Spanish translator, were in attendance Tuesday night where the topics ranged from the federal No Child Left Behind Act to teaching standards and student achievement.

Olga Melo, one of Tuesday night's attendees, said through the interpreter that she was worried that children were being held to a lower standard at some schools than at others.

Negri acknowledged some inequity in the system but assured the parents that the problem was being addressed.

"The strategic plan talks about success for all students, not just groups of students, so that's been the driving force for everything that we do. Are we there yet? No," he said. "While we have seen improved scores there is still a significant gap between the performance of white and Hispanic students, that the board has been discussing and is one of our primary focus areas for looking at what we need to make strides in." Negri set his sights high "Until we have every student in every school succeeding, we will not be a successful district, so I think we all have the same goal," he said.

This meeting was aimed at addressing the concerns of Spanish-speaking parents, and school official made sure a translator was present. With the help of the interpreter, parents and community members who speak little or no English were given the opportunity to provide the board with input on any district issue, as well ask questions directly.

Monica Luna, who has children at Castro and Graham Middle School, asked, through the interpreter, what rights parents had under the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal government's education accountability law.

Negri explained that No Child Left Behind allows parents to move their children to another school in the district and require the district to provide transportation as well as after-school tutoring. However, Negri added, the Mountain View-Whisman district had already been providing all of these services.

In order to avoid the risk of losing federal funding or being taken over by state or federal officials under the act, a school must have 13.6 percent of its students scoring proficient or above on the California Standards Test in English Language Arts. Sixteen percent must meet that target in mathematics, and there must be a 95 percent participation rate, according to the law.

Records show that Landels Elementary only tested only 94.4 percent of its students. And Graham did not meet the target scores in language, and Castro, where 80 percent of its student body speaks a language other than English at home, did not satisfy the math requirement. However the low-performing school saw a huge improvement on its state tests this year that left administrators beaming.

The Tuesday night gathering was an informal meeting, and no administrative action was taken at that time.

dstapleton@mv-voice.com

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