| By Bob Weaver
It has been over a year since the WV Department of Education issued a report regarding poor performance at Calhoun Middle-High School.
Kenna Seal, Director of Office of Education Performance Audits, says a follow up audit is scheduled before the end of this school year, with a report to be issued to the county system a month later.
The state audit was initially done in November, 2007 by an Education Performance Audit Team, which said, "the school's performance and progress are persistently below standard."
Another team visited the school in February, 2008.
CM-HS principal Karen Kirby said last year the school will be making major efforts to correct the audit's findings.
In 2008, Kirby presented a time-line to school board members to deal with the myriad of problems.
School officials have declined several requests to comment on steps they have taken during the past year to overcome the shortcomings,
since the issue was before the board in 2008.
The original audit team interviewed school personnel and administrators, observed classroom teaching and examined school records, finding a number of problems.
The audit said the school failed to meet No Child Left Behind standards - Average Yearly Progress (AYP), citing several problem areas.
The school had scores below mastery in math and reading in grades 5, 6, 8 and 10.
CM-HS was issued temporary accreditation, pending further review.
Following the initial report, Lee Evans, board president at the time said, "We are taking the audit very seriously," while board member Steve Whited said he believed the change from block scheduling to an 8-period classroom day could help the situation.
An audit team returned to the school on February 22, 2008 interviewing about 20 teachers, 75 students and school administrators, related to looking at corrections of problems brought to light in the earlier report.
That report cited CM-HS for having problems in achievement, curriculum, student and school performance and leadership, recognizing "the urgency for change."
The school failed to meet average yearly progress (AYP), indicating low scoring in math, reading and writing assessment.
OEPA cited the school for "six teachers not having lesson plans and a special education Collaboration Teacher not having lesson plans," saying that "All teachers did not exhibit a climate of high expectations of all students."
The team on the re-visit said "Classroom visits revealed several classes still not utilizing instruction time to the fullest."
"They're basically saying when they go in the classroom the teachers are not teaching from the time the period starts and the period ends," said former superintendent Jane Lynch, when questioned about the report.
"When we started discussing block scheduling, this was one of the areas we looked at, including test scores, now the state department seems to have found out that time on task is not being used particularly in block scheduling," said Lee Evans, who was board president in 2008.
One of the report's recommendations was to employ a full-time curriculum director. "We want to see that happen right away," said Evans, with board member Cynthia Dale emphasizing immediate hiring, saying "We need to have this person hired now."
The OEPA report mentioned shortcomings with a school counselor not spending 75% of their time in direct counseling.
It said the school does not conduct training regarding "disaggregation," or failing to look at areas where individual students are not meeting basic standards and how to help them.
The report said there was no written plan to include the "intent to involve the total school faculty in strategic planning," with no evidence of implementation.
Last year, principal Kirby said "I know we have work to do, but we are making progress."
The last report said the school system is "clearly committed to improving education of all the children at CM-HS."
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