Encinitas Union School District
101 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road
Encinitas, California 92024-4349
Phone: (760) 944-4300 | FAX (760) 944-4393

2 schools ineligible for state awards
Decision means staff will lose bonuses

Adam Kaye
Staff Writer
North County Times

 ENCINITAS – Two elementary schools won't receive a share of millions of dollars in state rewards tied to improved test scores because too few students took the state-mandated test last spring, state education officials decided Thursday. Students at Capri and Paul Ecke-Central schools met state goals to improve their scores on the Stanford Achievement Test —Ninth Edition.

 However, the schools will be denied roughly $30,000 in rewards because of a new policy the state Board of Education approved Thursday. The policy also means employees of both schools will lose bonuses of $700 to $800 each in the spring. Further, Capri and Paul Ecke-Central schools will be ineligible for cash rewards for two years.

 The new policy prevents schools from receiving the funds if parents of more than 15 percent of the students excuse their children from taking the statewide Stanford Achievement Test—Ninth Edition.

 The SAT-9 is a standardized test administered to second through 11th-graders in public schools. It is the anchor to the state's Public Schools Accountability Act launched in 1998 and includes millions of dollars as incentives to schools to improve student performance.

 The two Encinitas schools are the only ones in North County to be disqualified by the state because of the 15-percent threshold, state records show. School officials have known the state would be eyeing the validity of their test results. 

Last year, state officials warned districts that they could be denied the award money if it appeared a disproportionate number of low-scoring students didn't take the test. It wasn't until Thursday that the state board established the 15-percent benchmark to deny the funds. 

Of 7,000 public schools in California, state records show that at only 74 schools, more than 15 percent of students were excused from testing by their parents. According to the Department of Education, at Capri School, 15.6 percent of student were excused by their parents; at Paul Ecke Central, parents excused 21.4 percent of students from taking the SAT-9 test. That means 62 out of 397 students at Capri School did not take the test, while 61 out of 285 students at Paul Ecke-Central were not tested at their parents' request.

 Bonnie Drolet, assistant superintendent of instruction for the district, said Friday she thinks the state Board of Education's new policy is unfair and will recommend the district appeal it. Parents are legally entitled to excuse their children from testing, Drolet said. Fear of test-taking, language difficulties and special education accommodations are among the reasons parents give in asking their children not to be tested, she said.

Before the SAT-9 was administered, Drolet mailed parents letter informing them that the could keep their children out c the testing. The exemption were given entirely at the parents' request, she said. "The state gives parents the option to opt out," Drolet sail "then penalizes the school when they do." "If we hadn't have let (parents) know (about their HI lions), they wouldn't have opt out. We're in a quandary. What do we do—not let them know?

 In October, the Department of Education asked superintendents from 54 school districts t explain high percentages of sty dents not taking the test. At 134 out of the 7,00 schools statewide—including 21 in San Diego County—a least 10 percent of eligible test takers had received waivers. 

The state asked superintendents to prove that their schools were not purposefully excluding low-performing students. Encinitas Superintendent Doug DeVore responded in a letter to the Department of Education by stating he shared the state's "curiosity about the high number of exempted students" at two of the district's 10 schools. But, DeVore wrote, "at no time did any of the staff at either school encourage parents to exercise their legal right to request that their children be excused from the test."

 DeVore and other superintendents stated their scores were valid, said Pat McCabe, a manager in the Department of Education's policy and evaluation division. Still, state officials apparently were dissatisfied with the answers. The superintendents' explanations "did not go into the depth and do the analysis we had expected them to do," McCabe said.

 Districts such as Encinitas that appeal their disqualification will have to show strong evidence they didn't discourage poor-performing students from taking the test. "They're going to have to have real compelling evidence,' McCabe said. "If these schools get awards, someone else doesn't. The school that did an honest job and tested 99 percent of its kids and made the increased growth, you're penalizing it by letting schools in that didn't lace all of their kids."