By Lee Ross
Mountain View Telegraph
A total of four concerned parents and residents made it to the Moriarty-Edgewood School District's presentation on Adequate Yearly Progress.
There were also a handful of district employees and their spouses who attended. Last year there were about 3,500 students in the district.
This time around, only three of the eight schools in the district made AYP, four failed and the district is having the results for one school, Edgewood Elementary School, re-examined because it may have failed due to an error in the way students were counted.
Renee Mestas, the district's coordinator for Curriculum and Learning, ran the Aug. 13 meeting. She pointed out several positive aspects of the district's scores, such as the rise in performance among several schools and she also noted that, if it is decided that Edgewood Elementary made AYP, then four of five elementary schools made the grade. There also were some concerns, including scores at the high school level.
"In the area of math, it is dismal performance," she said.
Overall, 17.1 percent of the students were proficient in math. The high school also had a decline in reading scores. In fact, last year the school only failed to make AYP proficiency goals in reading scores for three subgroups: students learning English, those with disabilities and those who are economically disadvantaged. This year, the only proficiency goal the high school made was in reading in the Caucasian subgroup and it failed in seven other categories.
After Mestas presented the results, one of the parents broached the subject of the poor attendance at the meeting to discuss those results.
"At football, they will call a mandatory parent meeting and they will fill the gym," said Herman Fisher, who described himself as a "helicopter parent" who would attend every meeting.
Another parent, Alexandra Paniagua, said she was also concerned about the turnout.
"Parents who care about their kids ... they would be a little more proactive," she said. "What we're talking about now is what these kids are going to carry for the rest of their lives."
Dawn Tinsley, the principal of Moriarty Middle School, said her school made an effort to find ways of getting parents more involved in their child's education last year.
Tinsley said in the last school year she called every parent personally, at least once, to check in when the student wasn't having any problems at school. It may not be feasible to do so at the high school, she said.
"I have a school of 284 students; I can do that," she said.
The change came because, after her school failed to make AYP for several years, she, her staff and the district took a hard look and made some changes. At that point the school had failed to make AYP enough times to be designated "restructuring" last year, which requires a plan to turn the school around. She said she lost a few teachers because of what the school went through.
"If you can't handle looking in the mirror, maybe it's time to leave," she said.
Because Edgewood Middle School and Moriarty High School have been designated restructuring, part of the process is taking a look at how the school operates, which may include how it relates to parents.
Fisher mentioned a problem in that regard.
He said he and his wife asked his son's teachers for e-mail alerts when his son's grade slips or he doesn't turn in an assignment and was refused.
"You'd think we were asking them to turn over their paycheck," he said.
Mestas said there is a reason teachers can act that way.
"Teachers work their brains out ... sometimes they don't realize how things can appear," she said.
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