Prospective superintendent made some grades

Clark County

SO YOU KNOW

• Greater Clark County Schools enrollment is about 72 percent white and free and reduced-lunch category students make up more than half of the nearly 11,000 enrolled. Valparaiso Community School’s enrollment is 83 percent white. Those students taking free or reduced lunches make up 25 percent of the nearly 6,400 students.
— Indiana Department of Education

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June 10, 2012

Prospective superintendent made some grades

Academic record shows improvement in previous districts under Melin’s watch

By JEROD CLAPP jerod.clapp@newsandtribune.com The News and Tribune Sun Jun 10, 2012, 09:56 AM EDT

JEFFERSONVILLE — Though questions have been raised about some of the finances in his district, the academic performance under Andrew Melin — Greater Clark County Schools’ finalist for the superintendent job — seems to demonstrate an upward trend.

Melin, coming from Valparaiso Community Schools, has implemented intervention programs, increased graduation rates and increased scores in a district that was approaching the 90 percentile in three categories of ISTEP+ before his arrival.

During a public forum Thursday night, Melin said he was the head of an alternative school program in the district he first worked in — East Allen Community Schools in Fort Wayne. He took that experience with him when he became the superintendent of Peru Community Schools. According to a short biography read at the forum, that program expansion helped improve the graduation rate in Peru Community Schools from 69 percent to 81 percent in one year’s time.

In an interview early Thursday, Melin said another part of his educational philosophy includes looking at children as individuals to see what their needs are to learn, then address those needs.

“My basic focus academically is that you improve student achievement one student at a time,” Melin said. “You identify those core concepts that students need to learn and ensure they’re learning them. If they haven’t, you intervene immediately.”

He calls the strategy Response to Instruction/Intervention. He said using that program in Peru Community Schools from 2008-10, the district was the No. 1 school in the state for No Child Left Behind requirements.

Though the corporation was already performing at a high level, Valparaiso Community Schools’ ISTEP results increased in his first year.

The percentage of students passing the math portion of the test went from 89.3 percent in 2010 to 89.7 percent in 2011, students passing English/Language Arts went from 90.2 percent to 90.6 percent and students passing both subjects went from 84.7 percent to 84.9 percent.

He also said the district is about to implement full-day kindergarten for the next school year, partially thanks to money found in the state’s budget.

Greater Clark has also been making strides in test scores at the same time, which is something community members and school staff want to see continued under a new superintendent.

Last year, Greater Clark hovered right around the state average scores, but it was the marked improvement the district made in the last two years that showed how current superintendent Stephen Daeschner had implemented programs to help students succeed.

From the 2009-2010 school year to the next, test scores in Greater Clark were raised about 15 percentage points in English/language arts and 18 percentage points in math.

“I think first of all, it’s important to remember that Greater Clark over the past two years has made tremendous strides and they’re moving in a good direction,” Melin said.

Daeschner had set performance gain goals to meet in three years at Greater Clark and met them in two. But the district’s graduation rates dropped from 80.2 percent in 2010 to 77.6 percent in 2011.

Melin said while that rate still isn’t bad, he knows to see real change in district, it should probably be measured on a three-year scale.