Most charter schools hit goals
6 of 7 in Durham reach ‘adequate yearly progress’

Six of Durham's seven charter schools met federally mandated academic-performance guidelines for the 2005-06 school year, according to preliminary results made public this week.

Maureen Joy Charter School, at 1955 W. Cornwallis Road, was the lone school to not make "adequate yearly progress," or AYP.

The school met four of its seven target goals, or 57.1 percent, but not enough to pass.
Schools that passed are Healthy Start Academy, Carter Community Charter, Kestrel Heights School, Omuteko Gwamaziima, Research Triangle Charter Academy and The Central Park School for Children.

Required under the federal No Child Left Behind act, AYP is an all-or-nothing model. Even if a school misses one of its target goals, it does not make AYP. The most recent AYP results are based on reading. Math scores will come out in October.

To make AYP, a school must meet target goals for each group of students of 40 or more. Target goals are set annually by the state for reading and math at grades 3-8 and 10, and for attendance rates or graduation rates as well.

Goals get higher
The long-term AYP goal is to have every school at 100 percent proficiency by the 2013-14 school year. Proficiency goals are set increasingly higher in three-year increments until 2013-14.

This is Maureen Joy's third year of not making AYP, said Les Stein, the school's new executive director.
Stein, a retired colonel from the U.S. Marine Corps, hopes the public will be patient with the K-7 school, which recently has undergone some major transformations. Besides his new appointment, Stein has hired six new teachers and has plans to hire several more.

"I'm hiring only certified teachers," he said.
The school will focus purely on core academic subjects and leave the more fun activities for after-school, according to Stein.

"We're going to pull out all the stops," he said.
Getting good news
Officials at two schools -- Omuteko Gwamaziima and Research Triangle Charter Academy -- first heard that their schools met AYP when a reporter called Thursday for comment.

"That's great news!" said Bernitha Jenkins, director of Omuteko.
Jenkins attributed the school's success to smaller class sizes -- 18 students maximum -- and pushing students to achieve their personal best.

"We fully expected to [meet AYP]," she said.
Terri Gullick, principal of Research Triangle, said she couldn't wait to tell her staff.
"I'm thrilled," she said.
Gullick said the school didn't make AYP last year in three categories -- black males, free and reduced lunch students and special education students.

Practice tests
This year, students got three practice tests throughout the school year to track their progress, which helped.
Tim Dugan, director of Kestrel Heights, attributed the school's success to the "dynamite faculty" and said he hopes their achievement continues.

"[AYP] is just one measure of what we do here," he said.
Dietrich Danner, principal of Healthy Start Academy, said he was "elated" to get the reading results.
"We remain hopeful to also meet AYP in math," he said.
Professional development for teachers, rigorous benchmark testing throughout the year and aligning assessments with the curriculum are some of the ways the school has been successful, Danner said.

At Carter Community School, leadership and strong teaching is what helped the school do well, according to Burnice Cross, director of operations.

"[Principal Gail Taylor] has really turned the program around," Cross said.
Duke University's partnership with the school also has been helpful, school officials said.
A woman answering the phone at The Central Park School for Children passed along a comment from Tonya Roberts, the school's office manager, about their AYP success.

"We made the progress we expected," she said.
© Copyright by The Durham Herald Company. Original copyright 2004. Copyright renewed 2005. All rights reserved. All material on heraldsun.com is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws and may not be reproduced or redistributed in any medium except as provided in the site's Terms of Use.