District works till last minute to impress feds

 EDCOUCH – A state takeover could sweep away business as usual at Edcouch-Elsa High School if the district’s proposed improvement plan does not fix five years of underperformance at the campus.

The district rushed Friday to meet a deadline for improvement plans required under the federal No Child Left Behind education law, which has flunked E-E High’s academic progress since 2006.

School officials were busy finalizing the plan and did not return calls for comment, but if the district does not turn things around, it will face a takeover from the state or an alternative governance body.

“When you have a campus that for five years can’t get around or even make marked improvement in an area of failure, then there needs to be some drastic steps taken,” said DeEtta Culbertson, a Texas Education Agency spokeswoman. “There’s a serious problem there, and sometimes it takes severe actions to get to these campuses.”

Adequate yearly progress, or AYP, is the federal measuring stick to determine whether or not schools improve student performance in graduation rates, math and reading test scores and testing participation.

E-E High has slipped in a number of those categories for years, but the most recent AYP report docked the school for low graduation rates and too few English-limited students taking the reading tests.

TEA requires the district to submit a convincing proposal detailing how it will tackle those problems. In addition, the district must essentially outline its own takeover if it fails to meet AYP again this year.

“This makes the school take notice,” Culbertson said. “It makes the district responsible for every child.”

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Neal Morton covers education and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956)683-4472.