Rural schools fare well on testing

Rural Mower County educators are happy to make the grade this year.

Several rural Mower County schools made Adequate Yearly Progress on the 2011 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment this year.

“We’re really relieved,” Southland and LeRoy/Ostrander Superintendent Steve Sallee said. “That’s what we’re looking for.”

Though LeRoy/Ostrander Public Schools did not make AYP in total for this year, LeRoy Elementary met AYP requirements in math and reading. LeRoy High School made AYP in math but failed AYP in reading.

“High school reading was our area of concern,” Sallee said.

Southland Elementary and Southland High School made AYP across the board, but middle school white and special education students did not make AYP, which means Southland Middle School failed. The middle school made AYP last year.

Though Sallee acknowledges Southland has some work to do, he said Southland’s progress is positive, as they implemented targeted services using Austin Public School resources last year to help underperforming students.

“Overall, we were really pretty pleased,” Sallee said.

 Smiling Lyle

Lyle Public School officials are pleased with their results this year: The district made AYP across the board.

“This is time to celebrate,” said Lyle Superintendent Jim Dusso. “We did a lot of hard work and now it’s time to celebrate those accomplishments.”

Lyle did not make AYP last year due to its participation rate. Because of a clerical error with students who also attend school in St. Ansgar, Iowa, only 94.9 percent of Lyle students took the MCA last year, just a handful of students shy of the 95 percent benchmark needed for MCA proficiency.

“It never had to deal with our students learning,” Dusso said.

Lyle must maintain its AYP status next year to get off the AYP failure list.

 Business in Grand Meadow and G/E

Grand Meadow and Glenville/Emmons officials are pleased with the progress they’ve made in AYP math and reading tests.

“Congratulations to the staff there,” said Jerry Reshetar, superintendent of Grand Meadow and Glenville/Emmons. “We kind of expected an increase in our capabilities.”

Each district will come up with improvement plans as several districts are still on AYP failure lists. To get off a AYP failure list, a school or district needs to make AYP for two years in a row. Educators say they won’t be done with their MCA analysis and planning for several weeks, due to the state government shutdown.