Enrollment has dropped in part because of the negative label that failure to meet NCLB standards carries, Uintah School District Superintendent Charles Nelson said. Despite offering a $5,000 stipend to teachers, the school still can't lure educators to its classrooms.
But inside the school, past the mural of an American Indian man in a full headdress standing regally at the foot of a waterfall, is a group of students the principal and teachers refuse to give up on. Though enrollment is down to about 120 students, administrators made a decision a few months ago.
"We're going to stop talking about closing West," Nelson said. "We're going to talk about what we can do to improve West."
After repeatedly failing to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), a combination of testing and attendance requirements mandated by NCLB, West last year received an infusion of federal money - $100,000 - that was used in part to pay for a team of consultants to analyze the school.
On Monday, when the new AYP results are released, the community will learn whether the school's efforts are moving West in the right direction.
Nelson stresses how complicated the situation is when a school hasn't met NCLB requirements. It's not as simple as reversing direction over a few months.
"If there were some magic bullet, we'd have shot ourselves by now," he said.
Some of the changes the district would like to make have little to do with tests or pencils. At a school that had nearly 80 percent minority students last school year, almost all of whom were American Indians, none of the full-time teachers was Northern Utes or members of other tribes. Education officials point to the statewide teacher shortage, competition with other schools and the small pool of American Indian candidates as part of the problem.
The Northern Ute Tribe is working to seed a new generation of teachers by funding a program to help students earn college degrees in education.
Some of the recent changes at West include a self-contained sixth grade where students primarily stay in their home classrooms, a summer teacher workshop and the development of professional learning communities that will help teachers collaborate on and integrate curriculum. The school is continuing to work on attendance, a critical challenge to making AYP, by increasing students' connection to the school.
"Having that label of not making AYP clouds what's really important here," Principal Deborah Clarke said. "We have awesome teachers - if [people] could just see the dedication and commitment to children at this school."
jlyon@sltrib.com
