Deirdre Newman
The check is in the mail. Seriously.
The 11 schools in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District that
qualified for Governor's Performance Awards for the 2000-01 school
year will finally get their financial rewards, which have been on
hold since January.
The announcement was made Monday by state Secretary for Education
Kerry Mazzoni. The awards were delayed because of the ongoing state
budget negotiations, said Hilary McLean, chief deputy press secretary
for Gov. Gray Davis.
The awards are based on the Academic Performance Index, which is
generated from the Stanford 9 exam and other standardized tests
students take each spring. The amount of the award is based on the
number of students who take the test at each school.
To qualify for the award, schools had to meet their overall
schoolwide growth targets and growth targets for all of their
comparable subgroups, such as Latino students and economically
disadvantaged students.
Newport Harbor High School was the only high school to qualify; it
scored $58,971. No middle schools made the cut, but 10 elementary
schools did, including campuses with a significant number of students
at risk of not fulfilling their educational potential, such as
Whittier and Wilson elementary schools in Costa Mesa.
Newport Harbor High School "showed marked improvement," said Peggy
Anatol, the district's director of kindergarten through 12th-grade
assessment. "To show big growth in all subgroups is commendable.
Everybody grew, not just one group."
The decision on how to spend the money has already been made by
most of the individual school-site councils, Anatol said.
This is the last year schools will reap the reward because it was
cut from the revised budget that was unveiled in May. With a
$23.6-billion revenue shortfall, slashing the award will save the
state $157 million.
