Africa West tout art talents at Douglass High
Douglass High School was alive with art on Saturday as students from Kindergarten through twelfth grade participated in the first ever program for all of Oklahoma City Public Schools Region 1 schools.
Africa West was an opportunity for the predominately black schools located in northeast Oklahoma City, Spencer and Midwest City to celebrate the “African-American imprint.”
If parents have any photos from the event – whether it was the Thelma Parks Elementary students dancing or one of the high schoolers belting out the theme song from Rent – send them my way and I’ll try to post them on this blog: mrolland@opubco.com.
OKCPS dropout, remediation rates high
A report on the number of drop outs at Oklahoma City High Schools, showed that while some schools made it through 2009 without loosing a single student, others lost students in the hundreds.
The district also reported the number of students attending college from each of the district’s 11 schools, and of those students how many required remediation in math and reading.
At some schools more than half of college bound students required remediation in math or reading, while other schools boasted less than 18 percent of students had to enroll in remediation.
Read the full report here under the OKCPS Dropout and Remediation Report link.
NAEP results show little growth
Oklahoma is among a majority of states that showed no significant growth on national standardized tests for reading, according to the Nation’s Report Card released today.
Every student in the nation is required to take the National Assessment of Educational Progress for reading in fourth and eighth grades.
The report released today found that across the nation reading scores have remained the same for fourth graders and increased only slightly for eighth graders.
Oklahoma fourth graders scored an average of 217 points on the reading exam, while the national average was 220 points. Only 27 percent of students scored proficient or advanced on the test, while 38 percent showed basic reading skills and 35 percent showed below basic skills.
In 2007, the state’s fourth graders had exactly the same average score on the tests, while it does show at least a two point improvement from the 2005 tests.
National education organizations are calling the nationwide lack of growth in reading scores “disappointing,” particularly given the focus that has been placed on federal reading programs.
Read the full report here.
District’s strategic plan debated
A strategic plan for the Oklahoma City School District stalled Monday night as board members called for a more in-depth planning process that may bring in an external firm to help draft the plan.
After holding several workshops, the board had drafted a “framework” for its strategic plan. However, that plan failed to get approval Monday night.
“I can’t vote on this if I don’t know who is going to take charge of the process,” Board Member Lyn Watson said.
Member Phil Horning called for external help in the process.
“I think that this document may be the best that we can do ourselves, or very close to it, so the question may seem to me are we going to get an outsider to check our work,” Horning said.
Chairwoman Angela Monson urged the board to approve the framework Monday, and then move forward at a later date with creating a strategic plan.
A review of the district’s progress released last month by the Oklahoma City Public Schools Foundation noted that the district had no strategic plan or direction for the future. The foundation offered to support the process.
Monson called for the district to pull together a strategic plan in 30 days, following the report.
Superintendent Garrett named impactful woman in public service
Oklahoma State Superintendent Sandy Garrett received the Kate Barnard Award that recognizes “outstanding women in public service.”
Garrett was the first woman elected to the state’s top education position and has served five consecutive terms.
The award has been given by the Oklahoma Commission for the Status of Women since 1998, and it is named for Kate Barnard, the first woman elected to statewide office not only in Oklahoma but in the United States.
Barnard was elected in 1907 as the Oklahoma Commissioner of Charities and Corrections.
“Kate Barnard spent her life championing issues impacting women and children, and I have strived to do that in mine,” Garrett said in a media release.
