Although results will not be official until approved by the State Board of Education next month, the data show that Oak Lane, Woodland and Stories Creek elementary schools met 100 percent of their respective AYP goals for the year. The remaining four elementary schools and both middle schools, however, failed to attain all their 2006-07 AYP targets.

Person High School’s results are not yet available.

Roxboro Community School, only having operated one year, had no results to report this year, explained Principal Sam Kennington. The goals of the county’s newest charter school for the upcoming year will be based on 2006-2007 testing results.

Meantime, Bethel Hill Charter School met all of its goals for the 2006-07 term.

Oak Lane and Woodland each made all 13 of their goals, while Stories Creek attained 100 percent of its 17 targets.

According to the preliminary report, Helena Elementary met 20 out of 21 goals; North Elementary met 11 out of 13; North End Elementary met 14 of 17 and South Elementary met 10 out of 13.

Both Northern and Southern middle schools had 21 goals. Northern met 16 and Southern met 19.

President Bush signed the “No Child Left Behind Act” of 2001 into law in January 2002. The law states that by the 2013-14 school year all students will be achieving at grade level.

According to a No Child Left Behind (NCLB) fact sheet, through statewide testing, AYP measures the yearly progress of different groups of students toward achieving state academic standards in reading/language arts and math.

Each school has a certain number of target goals, and under federal NCLB law, if Title I schools do not meet these state target goals for AYP for two or more years in the same subject, they are designated as Title I School Improvement schools. >>

Schools so designated “must offer all parents in the school the option of transferring their children to other schools designated by the district,” according to the NCLB fact sheet. Non-Title I schools not meeting AYP are not required to offer school choice, but must amend their school improvement plans.

For high schools, the test used to measure AYP is the 10th grade North Carolina Comprehensive Tests of Reading and Mathematics. For elementary and middle schools, the end-of-grade tests are used.

According to Person County Schools Testing Director Debbie Smith, if Stories Creek Elementary had not met its AYP goals this year, it would have been designated as a Title I School Improvement school.

“The staff and administration of Stories Creek are to be commended,” commented Schools Supt. Larry Cartner, adding, “The credit goes to them.”

Bethel Hill Principal John Betterton declared, “I’m always pleased to meet AYP and move forward with all of our children.”

The charter school met all 13 of its goals and had an increase from the previous year in reading pass rate from 93 percent to 94 percent and an increase in math from 71 percent to 76 percent.

Betterton said he is pleased with the progress and proud of the students, especially the fourth grade class, who had a 100 percent pass rate on the reading test

Person High School, as well as other high schools across the state, did not release preliminary AYP data.

The Web site for Chapel Hill-Carborro Public Schools explained that standards-setting for a new high school test is delaying the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) from having AYP results for high schools across the state. Official results are expected from the DPI on Aug. 17; however districts were asked to release preliminary results prior to that date in order to allow for parent notification at schools facing NCLB sanctions.

Person High School Principal Margaret Bradsher said Tuesday she did not have enough data, at this point, to be able to tell with any certainty how her students performed on AYP. She did say that the high school would be in no danger of sanctions if it failed to meet AYP, however.

Person County Board of Education Chairman Gordon Powell said, given that the DPI had “reestablished benchmarks, we knew this would be a down year.”

According to preliminary results in Wake County, 46 of 86 elementary schools; 20 of 28 middle schools and nine of that district’s 18 high schools failed to meet AYP goals last year.

The Raleigh News & Observer this week reported that two elementary schools in both the Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Orange County school districts must offer students the option of transferring to other schools after failing to meet NCLB standards this year. All four Chapel Hill-Carborro middle schools failed to meet the standards.

School districts don't have to release preliminary AYP results. Durham Public Schools plans to release final results in August.

Person Schools Supt. Cartner told The Courier-Times that he reminded the school principals that with the “all or nothing” nature of NCLB, “we have to be aware that at any given time, literally, any school could fail to meet AYP.” That, he said, “is one of the inequities in that legislation.”

Cartner continued, “On the flipside, standards really do help us work harder for all children.”

Following passage of the NCLB back in 2002, North Carolina established starting points in reading and mathematics according to the specifics of the NCLB legislation. These starting points are the same for every school and subgroup within a school.

Incremental growth from these starting points is called "Adequate Yearly Progress" (AYP). Nine categories of students are potentially identified as subgroups. They are: 1) White , 2) Black, 3) Hispanic, 4) Native American, 5) Asian/Pacific Islander, 6) Multiracial, 7) Economically Disadvantaged, 8) Limited English Proficient, and, 9) Students with Disabilities.

If there are more than 40 students in a school in any of these groups, then that subgroup is measured under NCLB. In addition, each school must test at least 95 percent of all students in each subgroup in order to meet the standard.

If even one subgroup does not meet the measurement standard, the entire school is deemed not to have made AdequateYearly Progress. This is what is known as an "all or nothing" standard.

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C-T Staff Writer Phyliss Boatwright contributed to this report