Prince George’s targeting its troubled schools

Prince George’s County (Map, News) - While 11 Prince George’s County Public Schools made enough progress to come off a state list of struggling schools this week, the system still has a quite ways to go. One-third of the county’s elementary and middle schools remain on that list.

John White, a spokesman for Prince George’s schools, said the chief way the system is addressing the 56 troubled schools is through the Intensive Support and Intervention School program, which was implemented last year.

According to White, Prince George’s will have ISIS in 84 schools this year, and each school receives one of four levels of support, from targeted to intensive.

The targeted schools receive mentors for teachers and administrators and the extended learning opportunities, White said.

On the intensive level, he said, schools receive additional math and reading coaches, a data analysis and testing coordinator, a pupil personnel worker who assists at-risk children and their families, mentors for teachers and administrators, and learning opportunities for students outside the normal school day.

White said the goal of the program is to “provide specific supports and strategies that would improve the academic instruction and leadership in those schools.”

Schools are put on the state “School Improvement” list when they fail to reach adequate yearly progress targets in math and reading skills for two consecutive years. Of the 56 Prince George’s schools on the list, 10 are on the lowest level, or restructuring status, meaning they haven’t met progress targets for six years.

“The strategy that the state approved for schools in restructuring was to use a turnaround specialist,” White said. “But when [Superintendent John] Deasy arrived, he observed that more support was necessary to turn those schools around and that was the reason for creating the ISIS program.”

According to Prince George’s school officials , 101 of 135 elementary schools and nine of 32 middle schools met progress standards.

“Middle school is a national crisis,” White said.

Said Bill Reinhard, a spokesman for the state Department of Education, “The [Prince George’s] school system has had schools in various forms of school improvement for a long time. So, what they’ve done is really quite gratifying.”

dfowler@dcexaminer.com