SCHOOLS THAT MISS MARK GET ACCOUNTABILITY CASH.

Byline: Jennifer Radcliffe Staff Writer

There's good news and bad news for three San Fernando Valley public schools.

The bad news is, they've been tagged as failing to make adequate progress under the state testing system. The good news is that they'll garner hundreds of thousands of dollars more in state funding.

Chatsworth High School will receive $450,000 this fiscal year to hire more teachers, extend the school day, reduce class size and coach students still learning English.

``We're taking it as a positive way of improving our school instructional program,'' Chatsworth High Principal Dan Wyatt said.

Anatola Elementary in Van Nuys, Grant High School in Valley Glen and four other Los Angeles Unified School District campuses also will receive money under the state-monitoring system, called School Assistance and Intervention Teams.

While it's among one of the stricter sanctions that California schools face, area principals are anxious to put the money to good use.

Schools receive up to $100,000 a year to hire an external monitor and $150 per student for intense intervention efforts.

The little-publicized state accountability system, which preceded the federal No Child Left Behind law, provides extra help and monitoring to schools that fail to make adequate progress on the Academic Performance Index. The index, a compilation of standardized test scores, ranges from 200 to 1,000 - with 800 as the state target.

Schools are initially placed into the state's Immediate Intervention/Underperforming Schools Program. If they fail to show improvement with the $200 per student provided there, they are pushed into this stricter state-monitoring program.

``They got more money in exchange for more accountability,'' said Laura Wagner, an intervention specialist with the California Department of Education. ``Once the school enters the program, they have to make progress every year.''

It's the state's hope to eventually merge this accountability system with No Child Left Behind, which also tags schools that fail to meet certain standards. Those campuses, dubbed ``program improvement'' schools, face sanctions that range from being required to provide extra tutoring to federal takeover.

Both Anatola Elementary and Grant High also took on the program improvement designation this year.

``We got the double whammy,'' Anatola Principal Brenda Litt said.

School leaders are at least grateful that the state's system comes with specific funding. Because the state system stresses continued improvement, it is possible for solid schools to get sucked in.

Chatsworth High's API, for example, was a 655 in 2004, better than LAUSD's 634 average and just shy of the state's 693 average.

Wyatt said his school was targeted because it lacked a testing baseline for the social studies portion of the California Standards Test.

``In the last two years, we've improved 45 points on our API. We know we're headed in the right direction,'' he said.

The designation is almost a fluke, Wyatt said.

``We are caught up into it because of a technicality. We are using that technicality as a benefit,'' he said. ``We could have appealed to Sacramento, but we thought, if it helps kids, we might as well do it.''

Wyatt said he's working to make sure parents and teachers understand the designation, which law requires to be announced at a school board meeting, probably in January.

Carthay Center Elementary, Ritter Elementary, Fairfax High and Jordan High are the other Los Angeles schools on the list.

These aren't necessarily the worst schools in the LAUSD or the state, Wagner said.

``We have some fairly high-performing schools'' in the system, she said. ``These aren't the worst schools, but they are the schools that happen to be in the accountability system.''

Statewide, there are about 300 schools with the Immediate Intervention designation, she said.

But others say the School Assistance and Intervention Team label is one that must be taken seriously.

``By and large, it means something's wrong,'' board member David Tokofsky said.

Grant High School will get more than $500,000 from the monitoring program this year, Principal Sandra Cruz said. It'll be used for technology, professional development and smaller class sizes.

``It's a teeter-totter effect,'' she said, referring to the upside of the money and the downside of the stigma.

Cruz said she isn't necessarily looking forward to having an intervention team on her campus for 18 months. The monitors' operation is similar to LAUSD's controversial ``red teams,'' officials said.

``It makes it a little difficult when the state is sitting at your school for 18 months,'' she said. ``But it's a process that has to take place and we truly understand that.''

Grant is working to improve its API from 598 in 2004 to 625 in 2005, she said.

Anatola, which has an API of 688, was hurt because it offers a program for children with language development difficulties that attracts students from across the San Fernando Valley. Because of that program, the school's special education population is 19 percent - at least 50 percent higher than a typical school, Litt said.

Litt said she's met with parents to help them understand the label.

``Parents have been very supportive because they understand exactly what's going on,'' she said. ``They've gone on the defensive, if anything.''

Jennifer Radcliffe, [phone]

jennifer.radcliffe(at)dailynews.com