West Prep scores looking up
Thirteen-year-old Abraham Felix is seeing some differences at his school this year.
The eighth-grader at West Prep said the daily food fights have ceased and things are generally more calm on the inner-city campus. But the biggest difference can be found in his report cards.
"I used to get D’s last year," Abraham said last week. "This year, I have C’s and higher. My parents are happier with me."
Abraham’s improvement is indicative of the academic gains being made at West Prep, formerly West Middle School.
After a major overhaul last summer that included replacing the management of the for-profit Edison Schools Inc. and hiring a new principal and new teachers, the school has shown improvement in sixth- and seventh-grade math and reading scores on the state’s Criterion Referenced Test, or CRT.
West Prep’s sixth- and seventh-graders who took the exam in March improved in math and reading by at least 5 percentage points compared with students in those grades who took the exam in the 2005-06 school year.
West Prep, which is near Lake Mead and Martin Luther King boulevards, serves about 1,000 students in sixth- through ninth-grade.
Reading scores for the school’s seventh-graders made a 20 percentage point leap compared to the scores of seventh-graders who took the exam in the 2005-06 school year.
But the CRT scores also indicate that math and reading scores for eighth-graders remained stagnant.
Regardless, West Prep’s Principal Mike Barton said his school, which has consistently been the lowest performing middle school in the district, showed great strides in only one-year’s time.
Barton said some factors that contributed to the improvement are having 35 more school days than a traditional middle school, an hour extra of class instruction, and reduced class sizes of 25 students per teacher in the core subjects of math, reading and science.
The extra 35 days of class time includes 30 days of summer classes which are free and began Wednesday with an enrollment of nearly 400 students.
"It substantiates that having kids in school longer and lowering class sizes works," Barton said. "As far as the number of kids who should be proficient, we’re not there yet. But if we maintain this growth every year, we’ll get there."
The school’s improvement comes with a hefty price tag. West Prep gets about $600 more in per student funding than a traditional middle school, the same level of funding that empowerment schools receive.
The higher costs are attributed to paying instructors for their extra time teaching.
Superintendent Walt Rulffes said he’s content with the gains at West Prep in its sixth- and seventh-graders.
But even with the gains, West Prep’s CRT scores are still much lower than the district averages. Rulffes said those scores need to continue to increase and eighth-graders must show improvement in order to justify the costs of the school.
"We need to be reminded that West is operating under the same guidelines of empowerment schools. It reflects what additional funding can do," Rulffes said. "If they continue to sustain significant increases, we’ll continue to fund it at a higher level."
At empowerment schools, principals get more authority in determining their school’s budget and teachers are allowed leeway in determining programs that fit the needs of the school.
Edward Goldman, associate superintendent of the Education Services Division, which manages West Prep, said although West Prep’s scores aren’t as high as district averages, the school has made huge improvements with some of the most challenging student demographics in the district.
"Rome wasn’t built in a day," Goldman said.
Barton said about 75 percent of his students were reading below grade level when he took over the school, and some of those students were reading at a kindergarten or first-grade level.
West Prep receives federal funding, because 100 percent of its students come from low-income households.
About 92 percent of the students at the school are Hispanic and black.
Barton expanded the school to include ninth-grade in the fall.
He’s planning on another expansion this coming school year to include kindergarten through the third-grade and a 10th-grade class.
Barton expects to get an additional 500 students on campus in the fall. Elementary school students will be taught in 10 portables, he said.
Barton said he has a vision to convert the campus to a K-12 school by the 2009-10 school year.
The district purchased 4.85 acres just north of West Prep last summer for $2.35 million.
Goldman said he envisions a small elementary and high school being built on the empty plot.
He said it’s imperative that the district build facilities to accommodate a K-12 program for West Prep, especially because West Prep’s students arrive at the school from 54 elementary schools.
"If we get them as kindergartners, we’re going to teach them right. That’s the accountability factor," Goldman said.
"But you can’t expect that if they show up from 54 different elementary schools in sixth-grade. And we don’t want students to get lost in the shuffle at 3,000-student high schools."
