State drops LHS from ‘needs improvement’ list

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Getting Lawrence High School removed from another list — the New York State Education Department’s “needs improvement” list — was near the top of her agenda.
The high school was finally taken off the list this year, after spending five years on it. “I’m relieved that all the hard work that the district went through paid off,” Karant said. “I hope that all the schools within the district can remain off the list.”
According to Karant, the school achieved Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, status, and met state standards in Annual Measurable Objectives (AMO) two years in a row in order to be removed from the list. More than 95 percent of the students in every subgroup — black, Hispanic, Caucasian, Asian, English language learners and disabled — took Regents exams on time (the AYP standard), and each subgroup’s percentage of passing grades on Regents tests also met the AMO standard.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. John T. Fitzsimons commended the school’s teachers for improving its students’ scores and preparing them for the exams. “This is great news for the high school,” Fitzsimons said. “This is a testament to the staff that worked with the students. We have many kids that don’t have the same advantages as other schools. Many don’t have computers or help from their parents, and others aren’t native speakers of English.”
At the high school level, the “needs improvement” list is based on a formula that uses results from the prior year’s Regents exams in English and math in grades 9 through 12. On Long Island, the number of “needs improvement” schools dropped from 44 to 37, and the number of districts decreased from 12 to 10.
Karant has collaborated with Lawrence High Principal Geoff Touretz, Assistant Principal Dr. Jennifer Lagnado, the Pupil Personnel Services and Guidance departments and curriculum directors to develop a plan to test all eligible students on time and to improve the district’s data collection process. “I am very pleased that the high school was removed from the list,” Touretz said. “It took a great deal of work to look at the databases and make sure the students’ test results were accurate. I commend my assistant principal, Dr. Jennifer Lagnado, and the entire faculty for their incredible work with the students to make sure they came away with the correct results that are required for these tests.”
Karant credited the high school’s administrative, clerical and instructional staff for helping the district achieve its goal of being removed from the “needs improvement” list. “It was a matter of putting the data together properly to show Lawrence as the wonderful institution that it is,” Karant said. “We are currently comfortably above the state target. … I hope we can stay off the list.”
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