By Mark Millican

markmillican@daltoncitizen.com

With three straight years in the “needs improvement” category, administrators and faculty at Dalton Middle School believed a new approach was needed.

The school had been struggling in the areas of language arts and math, specifically with the subgroups for students with disabilities and English language learners, said Cheri Dedmon, director of strategic planning and assessment for Dalton Public Schools. Other subgroups were meeting “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) targets.

“Specifically, students were not proficient in the subject areas identified, and were not meeting Georgia performance expectations designated by NCLB (No Child Left Behind) guidelines,” Dedmon explained. “The difference has been the collaboration among the Teaching and Learning Central Office team, teachers and Dalton Middle School leadership, by aligning the instruction with the state standards.”

Teaching and learning teams consist of staff members from the district office who go out and support principals and teachers in the classroom. It was once known as the curriculum instruction department.

“The teachers designed formative assessments every nine weeks to determine the amount of progress students were making toward those standards,” Dedmon said. “The students took tests every nine weeks, and instruction was modified to better teach the standards.”

Dalton Middle made AYP during the 2007-2008 school year, but must repeat that success in the new school year to come out of the “needs improvement” category. A school in the “needs” area must give parents the opportunity to transfer their child to another school meeting AYP guidelines, or supply after-school tutoring.

The transfer aspect is problematic for Dalton Middle, since there is not another middle school in the Dalton Public Schools district.

Would parents be able to transfer their student to a Whitfield County middle school?

“Currently there’s not a method for that to happen,” said Dedmon, “and it would take a year to plan. At Dalton Middle they probably wouldn’t want to leave their school.”

Blue Ridge Elementary is the only school in the Dalton system that did not make AYP for 2007-2008, but with only three students unable to pass the English language learners section, officials are hopeful that re-testing during the summer will allow the school to make AYP. Results are expected around the first week in September.

Otherwise, one more year of not making AYP would drop the school into the “needs improvement” category.