Three local school districts scored above 900 in the Academic Performance Index for the 2004-2005 school year. A score of 800 is the target set by the state for all public schools.
Los Altos School District’s overall score rose 8 points from 2003-2004 to reach 949 in 2004-2005. Cupertino Union School District’s overall score rose 9 points to 920, and Palo Alto Unified School District’s overall score rose 9 points to 904. Mountain View-Whisman School District gained 11 points for an overall score of 764.
Among Los Altos district elementary schools, Almond gained 8 points for the district’s top score, 967, but Oak Avenue made the greatest gain, increasing 19 points to 964. Santa Rita declined 10 points to 939. Covington rose 15 points to 963, Loyola improved 6 points to 965 and Springer 10 to 960.
Both LASD middle schools made gains. Blach Intermediate rose 4 points to 952, and Egan Junior High rose 19 points to 947.
Among county schools, Bullis Charter School earned an API rating of 973 for 2004-2005, its first year of operation. The school met all Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) criteria.
In the Cupertino district, Faria Elementary School posted the highest API score for 2004-2005 of all non-charter public schools in the state.
The district’s overall Academic Performance Index (API) score of 920 in 2004-2005 represents an improvement of nine points from the previous year’s results. All Cupertino schools receiving an API score exceeded the state target of 800, and 17 schools scored above 900. Montclaire’s score rose 3 points to 947.
Faria, which received an API score of 1,000 for the 2003-2004 school year, also showed improvement. Last spring, the state rebased Faria’s 2003-2004 API score to 993. Faria’s 2004-2005 API score shows a 6-point improvement to 999.
The Cupertino district performed well above federal standards for adequate yearly progress, with 81.3 percent of students scoring proficient or above in English-language arts and 84.7 percent of students scoring proficient or above in math. The federal government requires that 24.4 percent of students score proficient or above in English-language arts and that 26.5 percent of students score proficient or above in math.
Last year, the federal government identified the Cupertino district as needing program improvement when the district failed to achieve a 95 percent participation rate in the special education math subgroup for two consecutive years. For the 2003-2004 school year, the district fell short of a 95 percent participation rate by six students. For 2004-2005, the district met all 33 aspects of its AYP criteria, including the participation rate of the special ed math subgroup.
High school scores
Only 12 percent of all high schools in the state reached or passed the 800 mark. Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District’s overall API score rose 16 points from the previous school year to exceed the target by 2 points. All schools met AYP criteria.
Los Altos High gained 8 points for a score slightly under the mark at 799. Mountain View High earned 13 points, putting it at 819.
The greatest leap in MVLA was Alta Vista High’s 141 points, taking the continuation school to 558.
Fremont Union High School District’s overall score increased by 15 points to 836. Homestead High Schools’s score rose 14 points to 824. The district and Homestead met AYP criteria in mathematics and English-language arts.
Palo Alto’s Gunn High School achieved an increase of 4 points to 885 for 2004-2005 and met all AYP criteria.
