Pali High Board of Trustees Discusses Academic Progress

By MAGNOLIA LAFLEUR | Reporter

The Palisades Charter High School Board of Trustees met on Tuesday, January 18,  focusing on students’ academic progress this past year.

Assistant Principal Amy Onyendu discussed absences and students missing school to quarantine, leading them to not earn class-credit over time. A motion to continue the suspension of the PCHS attendance policy through spring semester of 2022 passed—meaning students will not be censured due to missing class in part to adhering to COVID-19 and quarantine rules.

Monica Iannessa, the director of student achievement, also shared a presentation on academic progress. The presentation began with the school’s academic achievement goal stating, “PCHS will focus on its educational program by re-evaluating and updating existing courses and instructional practices to include innovative and relevant content … Additionally, PCHS will explore the expansion of courses to further align with college and career readiness.

“PCHS will refine its data system to track student progress towards college and career readiness.”

With a goal to create and design innovative and relevant content, while re-evaluating different grading and teaching practices within their departments, Iannessa explained that teachers have “rolled up their sleeves” in order to achieve these things. These evaluations come after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The meeting also discussed how students are performing in different departments.

The subject English had an 86% pass rate from 2019 through 2021, with a 3% increase of As, Bs and Cs. Iannessa feels the increase is due to the action research—a philosophical methodology that incorporates data and social economic analysis with a goal to make transformative changes through collaborative and interactive inquiry. The members of the English department achieved this by “grading for equity.”

Math had an 84% pass rate in 2019, and decreased 1% in 2021.

History had a pass rate of 92% in 2019, and decreased to 91% in 2021.

Science had a pass rate of 86% in 2019, then decreased to 90% in 2021.

World Language started with a pass rate of 95% in 2019, and decreased to 88% in 2021.

The College and Career Index—which shows a percentage of high school graduates who are approaching or are college and career ready—is an indicator that reflects how much students are prepared for success post-graduation.

In 2019, there was a drop to 72.7% of students who were prepared for college, a decrease from the two previous years: 78.6% in 2018, and 78.6% in 2017.

“It may have to do with the correlation of students that were not able to complete a CTE pathway, we did have a drop in CTE teachers and their credentials,” Iannessa shared during the meeting. “But we definitely want to keep that in mind. This is a great alignment with our board goal that wants to align our achievement with students that are college and career ready. So I believe this indicator we can make a lot of scaffolded goals in those categories to tick up this indicator for the upcoming year.”

The achievement indicator that Iannessa was most proud of was Testing Coordinator Joel Jimenez and his team’s ability to give every ninth grade student a literacy test through the Scholastic Reading Inventory test.

The Scholastic Reading Inventory program showed that 94% of students improved in the grade or common assessment due to the implementation of the program.

The school was also able to hire two writing coaches who helped design and execute the Power UP program, as well as identify 48 students whose scores displayed low lexiles and engage them to participate in the Power UP programs.

Students were given instruction in small groups of two to five. They held “mini-lessons” in the library and student center. This will continue through the second semester with the hopes of being able to help students improve their writing and reading skills, and comprehension.

“The most significant presentation from my perspective was Monica Iannessa’s data comparison of academic progress for the past three years,” Board Chair Dara Williams told the Palisadian-Post. “The data indicates that the school is moving toward more equitable grading practices but there is room for growth.”