Editor’s note: The following story is the first in a five-part series providing an in-depth look at some key issues confronting top administrators in the Raleigh County public schools system.



No Child Left Behind has been a hot topic for debate since the federal legislation was signed into law in January 2002.

Each school in the country has been affected by the legislation, designed to increase the standards of accountability for states, school districts and schools to ensure that “no child is left behind.”

Raleigh County is no different, Superintendent Dr. Charlotte Hutchens says, since the county school system has seen both the positive and negative aspects of NCLB.

“We all live every day with No Child Left Behind,” Hutchens said, “which, personally, I don’t think is a bad thing.”

One of the better aspects of NCLB, Hutchens says, is the emphasis it places on individual children.

“I think before, we kind of looked at the group as a whole and moving forward from there,” she said. “But (now) we actually look at every child and the progress they’re making.”

NCLB requires every student, by 2014, to be 100 percent proficient. Although that requirement is what forces that individual focus, Hutchens says the idea of perfection is just not conceivable.

“I don’t think that’s ever going to happen,” she said. “Children are children, and God made them all different.”

The method that determines proficiency is Adequate Yearly Progress. Each school and each county are required to meet AYP based on the annual WESTEST, West Virginia’s standardized test.

In 2004, 10 years before the deadline, Raleigh County set baselines of how many students were already at mastery and how much annual progress would need to be made to reach 100 percent by 2014.

Although Sheila Lucento, county guidance supervisor, says Raleigh County has “in most cases” met AYP, continuing to meet it as the 2014 deadline approaches is becoming increasingly difficult.

“Each year it’s harder and harder because not everyone is capable of reaching mastery on the same timeline,” she said. “Anyone who knows anything about statistics knows the further away from the mean you get, the more difficult it is.

“So the closer we get to 100 percent, it’s going to be next to impossible to reach it.”

One of the key factors of AYP is that individual subgroups within the school are required to reach proficiency as well, meaning, as a whole, a school could reach AYP, but because a subgroup, determined by ethnicity, special education, income, etc., did not perform well, the school does not make AYP, either.

Cindy Hicks, director of the county special education department, says these challenges are not unique to Raleigh County.

“I think if you look across the country, all districts are experiencing the same types of things with No Child Left Behind,” she said. “You have to look at how realistic is it to expect that all children within your various subgroups are going to be able to meet 100 percent proficiency by 2014. I say this from a special ed perspective because we’ve got some serious concerns.”

Although Hicks says there are definite challenges, NCLB, as a whole, has helped improve the system.

“Is their room for growth?” she asked. “By all means, and it’s a wonderful thing (because) we’re focusing on all children and it makes us look, as educators, at the instruction and getting the right lesson to the right child.

“We’re really doing a self-assessment of our own practices and what we can do to make appropriate changes that will be good and beneficial to all students.”

Monday: The well-being of children outside of school.

— E-mail: mjames@register-herald.com