A dozen schools in Kern County are failing to make the grade.
As a result, the state is cracking down, and that could lead to big changes, including many schools ditching their principals.
Kern County schools on the list are:
- Beardsley Intermediate
- Shirley Lane Elementary
- Bear Mountain Elementary
- Sierra Vista Elementary
- Buttonwillow Elementary
- Maricopa Elementary
- McFarland High School
- Semitropic Elementary
- Palm Avenue Elementary
- Boron Junior-Senior High
- Rosamond High School
- Kern County Community Center
Beardsley School District Superintendent Dick Stotler says the findings by the state are a fallacy.
"The fallacy is this. Campuses who worked really hard at the beginning of this process 9, 10 years ago made great progress," says Stotler. "You get to a point where it's a slow process."
If under-achieving schools wish to receive additional state funding, the state requires them to do one of four things:
- Replace the principal and re-hire no more than 50 percent of the staff.
- Close the school and re-open it as a charter.
- Close the school and enroll students in better schools.
- Use improvement strategies, like more instructional time and replacing the principal, something Beardsley principal Kevin Williams isn't thrilled about.
"If they (low performing schools) were to make 50 points growth in the last five years, they (the state) would pull those schools off of this list," says Williams. "And Beardsley Intermediate had made 142 point growth in the last 9 years. It's just most of our growth were in the first few years."
Targeted schools only have to implement one of the four changes if they want additional funding being used as a carrot.
