It’s been a good year for Sonora Elementary School, and it continued Wednesday.
The school was one of seven Newport-Mesa Unified School District schools to score a 10 out of 10 in the 2007 Base Academic Performance Index report’s similar school rankings, and improved to an 8 out of 10 in its statewide ranking.
The jump was substantial in comparison to the school’s ranking a year ago, when it scored a 2 versus similar schools and a 3 in the state.
The 2007 Base API was calculated using the 2007 spring test scores and shows new base scores upon which they will be judged when growth figures are released in August. The report also showed rankings for schools statewide and versus similar schools.
The similar rankings compare schools’ testing results against other campuses with similar student ethnicities, socioeconomic status, number of fully credentialed teachers and other categories. State rankings are judged by the school’s API scores versus all other schools in California.
“We are really blown away by the 8 [in state rankings],” Sonora principal Christine Anderson said. “Now we just have to repeat the act.”
Anderson attributed the testing improvement to the various changes the school made within the last few years, including a preschool program and reading interventions. The children first exposed to those programs are in second grade this year and their first testing scores were shown in the results released Wednesday, Anderson said
“One of the biggest things is just all agreeing that there were no excuses,” Anderson said of the school’s drastic improvement over last year. “It is easy to say this child comes from a low socioeconomic background or doesn’t speak English. Those are things we cannot change. So we asked ‘what are we going to do to see these kids succeed?’”
Kaiser and Killybrooke elementary schools both saw their rankings against similar schools jump to a 10, as both scored an 8 the year before. Rea Elementary moved up one place statewide to a 3 and reached a 9 versus similar schools, a three-spot leap.
Mariners Elementary continued its dominance with a 10 in both rankings, but Lincoln Elementary and Orange Coast Middle College High School joined Mariners and five other Newport-Mesa schools in getting ranks of 10 statewide.
