Barstow High dropped from state's low-performing list

BARSTOW • The California Department of Education’s official tally of low-achieving schools no longer includes Barstow High School on its list of poor performers in the state.

By getting dropped from the list, Barstow High avoided having to make drastic changes for next year in order to prevent potentially getting shut down.

While Barstow High got crossed off the list, Barstow Junior High School, which was not originally named, appeared on a different list of low-performing schools.

Schools that appeared on the Tier III list, which was not part of the CDE’s initial report Monday, are schools in federal Program Improvement status that receive Title I funds. They’re on a sort of watch list, according to spokeswoman Tina Jung. Schools like Barstow Junior High, however, will not have to face sanctions like the schools named on the 5 percent of low-performers.

Barstow High principal Scott Godfrey was relieved to learn that his school was no longer named but noted that the staff is still working to improve academic performance using this year’s new curriculum pacing guides and district intervention program.

“I know that we as a school have a lot of work to do whether we’re on a list or not,” he said. Godfrey said he was concerned upon hearing about the initial report, which called for persistently lowest-achieving schools to make dramatic changes like replacing the principal. “We’re looking to have some consistency,” Godfrey said, noting that he is the third principal at Barstow High in three years.

Superintendent Susan Levine said that Godfrey would have stayed on as principal regardless of the changes. One of the state provisions says that a district that replaced a principal within two years would not have to do it again.
The state compiled its initial list of 188 persistently lowest-achieving schools for the first time to line up with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009’s requirement for public school stimulus funding.

Levine said while she is glad to hear that Barstow High no longer made the list, she is also concerned with how federal funding is affecting state public schools.

“I have some conflicting ideas and emotions about whether the federal government should be getting involved in education,” she said. “Label or not, we know that we have progress to make.”

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