News
Draper named "high performing/gap closing" school for second year in a row
June 2008
The New York State Education Department
recently recognized Draper Middle School as one of the state's "high
performing/gap closing" schools for the second year in a row. This
means that Draper met all applicable state standards for English
Language Arts (ELA) during the 2005-06 and 2006-07 school years and
also made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). In making its
determination of AYP, the state considers the group of test-takers
as a whole, as well as the performance of "subgroups" of students,
such as: students with disabilities, low-income students, students
of specific ethnic origin, and more.
Some initiatives that the Mohonasen School District put in place at
Draper to help students achieve were: offering two levels of
Academic Intervention Services (AIS), increasing help in reading
practices by all area teachers (not just ELA), increasing the focus
on reading comprehension, providing more after-school review
sessions, and even holding reading rallies.
"This has been an initiative of the ELA department as well as the
entire Draper staff," said Principal Debra Male. "The students
worked hard toward the goal of improving performance. We issued them
a group challenge, as well as a personal challenge. That is
synergy!"
As a result, ELA scores increased from 45 percent in 2005-06 to 59
percent in 2006-07! Thank you to former Draper Middle School
Principal Patrick McGrath for helping to put these initiatives into
place three years ago.
