By By JAMES COLLINS / Niles Daily Star
NILES -- The Michigan Department of Education released the Michigan Schools Report Cards on Friday and all but one of Niles Community Schools met the achievement requirements.
Ring Lardner Junior High School failed to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) because three of its subgroups did not reach proficient levels on the MEAP tests.
Those subgroups are ethnicity, special education and economically disadvantaged students.
The results are available to the public on the Michigan Department of Education's website, www.michigan.gov/mde.
The Michigan School Report Card is designed to provide parents, teachers, school administrators and the general public with a view of each school's performance.
The Report Card is part of Michigan's accreditation program, Education YES! and was to developed to incorporate the federal achievement requirements contained in the No Child Left Behind Act.
Though Howard Elementary was also listed as a school that did not meet requirements on the website, Craig said this was inaccurate because Howard Elementary had met all of the necessary requirements.
Ballard, Eastside, Oak Manor, Niles High School and Cedar Lane Alternative School also met all of the necessary requirements.
Ballard, Eastside and Howard all received "B"s as accreditation grades and Niles High School and Oak Manor both received "C"s. Cedar Lane did not receive an accreditation grade on the report card. (Ring Lardner also received a "C" despite failing to make the AYP).
Brandywine's elementary, middle school and high school all met the requirements with the elementary and high school both receiving "C"s. The middle school received "no grade" in the accreditation grade column.
The grades are calculated by taking a number of factors into consideration including MEAP achievement, MEAP improvement and Adequate Yearly Progress.
In a press conference on Wednesday, officials from Niles and Buchanan Schools voiced their concerns with the report cards.
The press was notified that schools that are doing well on the MEAP tests could still receive failing grades, because they did not show enough improvement from the previous year.
A school will not face any kind of sanctions until it fails to meet the requirements for two consecutive years. This is Ring Lardner's first year of not meeting the requirements.