STATE CRACKS WHIP ON SCHOOLS DECLINING SCORES LEAD TO TOUGHENED SANCTIONS.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Antelope Valley High School and Wilsona Elementary School are among the first six schools in California to face more serious sanctions because their standardized test scores failed to improve consistently.

The two schools each will be visited by a state Department of Education team this month to help state officials decide among four possible sanctions to be imposed, the most draconian of which is closure.

``Since we didn't improve to the extent we are required, the department sends in a district intervention team. They will visit every classroom, meet with me, meet with the principal and make recommendations,'' Wilsona School District Superintendent Ned McNabb said.

Antelope Valley Union High School District officials did not respond to requests last week for comment.

The four other schools undergoing a similar review are Eastin-Arcola Elementary School in the Madera Unified School District; Alicante Avenue Elementary School in the Lamont Elementary School District; Lexington Elementary School in the Cajon Valley Union Elementary School District; and Compton Junior High School in the Bakersfield City Elementary School District.

Antelope Valley High School's Academic Performance Index score for 2005 was 582, down 20 points in a year and the second lowest score in the Antelope Valley for a conventional public school, state test records show.

Wilsona's API score was 704, down from 708 the year before - but still higher than about two-thirds of local schools. The state's goal is 800.

The state began monitoring the six schools not because their scores were especially low, but on account of their API scores dropping or staying the same for two years in a row. Audits of their instructional programs were conducted by outside educators. The auditors, called School Assistance and Intervention Teams (SAIT), recommended steps to improve academic performance.

With the improvement plans, the schools were required to improve API scores for two years in a row between 2003 and 2005 but did not do so. That made them subject to the next level of sanctions.

Targeted schools that do improve for two consecutive years exit the so-called three-year SAIT process and are no longer monitored by the state. Piute Middle School in the Lancaster School District and Shadow Hills Intermediate School in the Palmdale School District are in their second year of the SAIT monitoring process.

According to state figures, Antelope Valley High School met its API target growth in 2004 but not in 2003 or 2005. Wilsona improved in 2003 but not in the two ensuing years.

State law requires the state schools superintendent to do at least one of the following:

--Require that the school district ensure that 100 percent of the teachers at the school are highly qualified.

--Require the school to contract with an outside organization to provide supplemental instruction to high-priority pupils and assign to the school a management team, trustee, or SAIT team with demonstrated success at other state-monitored schools.

--Allow parents to apply to the state Board of Education to establish a charter school.

--Close the school.

State education officials went before the state Board of Education in September and suggested that more study of the six schools was needed before sanctions were imposed.

``We need additional information - why haven't they gotten out of the process, what happened to each of them?'' said Laura Wagner, administrator of the state education department's intervention assistance office.

There is a possibility that state education officials might find another option other than the four listed sanctions.

``Each school is potentially facing one of the four options, but there is some discretion. People always jump to worst-case scenario. That's the reason why we are doing the review, so we can identify what is the next best thing for these schools,'' Wagner said. ``There could be circumstances where none of the four would be appropriate.''

McNabb, the Wilsona superintendent, said monitored schools must improve their API scores overall as well as among student subgroups by a specified amount. He said Wilsona had higher API scores when compared to the other five schools and in 2005 was the only one above 700 at 704.

``I will say we are generally on the right course. We missed it by two to three points. Our scores were very high. Since then we have fluctuated a lot and haven't grown a lot,'' McNabb said.

McNabb said some of the four sanctions would not make sense for the district. Closing Wilsona would take away one of the district's two elementary schools, he noted.

He added that 80 percent of teachers statewide are rated highly qualified, and bringing Wilsona's faculty to 100 percent would be a challenge.

``That's kind of unrealistic. I'm not saying we can't or don't want to do it. It's kind of a stretch. Recruiting for teachers is more of a challenge for us,'' McNabb said.

Of the 211 schools in the state pegged for monitoring under the three-year SAIT process, 41 have improved enough to leave the program, state records show.

There are another 10 schools being watched by the state under a newer program called the High Priority Schools Grant Program.