Administrators report West Fork schools all in line with standards
Posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2008
WEST FORK — All of the district’s schools made adequate yearly progress last year under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, Board of Education members heard Monday during the district’s annual report to the public.
“ All our schools are fully accredited, ” Superintendent Diane Barrett added.
The federal education law requires schools to show annual improvement on their reading and math scores. Schools that do not make adequate progress can be placed on the state’s “ improvement list. ”
With the latest results, West Fork currently has no schools on improvement, Barrett said.
“ We’re just glad we made it, ” Elementary Principal Pat Thaler said.
Progress under the law was one of many topics mentioned during the report, where administrators provide information on activities and student performance within the district.
Each principal spoke about his school’s enrollment, demographics and some of their curriculum offerings and activities.
A construction project is under way at the high school that will add two new science labs and classrooms, Principal John Karnes said. It is scheduled to be finished in December.
“ It will finish out the dome around our library / media center, ” Barrett said.
Thaler said his school currently has 473 students in kindergarten through fourth grade and 50 percent are participants in the federal free and reduced lunch program for low-income students.
The schools attendance rate was 94. 9 percent for 2007-2008, he added.
Middle School Principal David Skelton said he has 391 students at his school, which includes 209 boys and 182 girls.
The school currently has 25 advanced eighth-grade students that are enrolled in Algebra I. They visit the high school building to take that class, he reported.
“ I’m trying to get someone in my building certified to teach Algebra I, ” he said.
Some of the middle school’s extracurricular activities include the Drama Club, Science Club, Guitar Club, Hooked on Fishing Not on Drugs and the Students Taking All Responsibility Club, which focuses on recycling and ecology, Skelton added.
Karnes said the high school has 396 students enrolled, and like the middle school, it has more boys than girls.
There are 226 boys enrolled at the school and 170 girls, he said.
Other recent improvements include new light blue carpet in the library, which was paid for from some of the proceeds of the district’s Pepsi contract, he said.
The new carpet replaced a brown carpet that Karnes said he believed was more than 30 years old.
West Fork High School offers 78 credit courses, which exceeds the minimum 38 courses required by the state, Karnes said.
This year’s offer ings include five Advanced Placement courses and Spanish and French classes for foreign languages.
Some of the elective offerings include business / marketing, family and consumer science, agriculture and furniture manufacturing, Karnes said.
Nearly all classrooms have mounted overhead projectors that teachers can use to make presentations, he added.
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