Michigan Department of Ed: New Haven High Made Strides

The high school made Adequate Yearly Progress and is off the priority school list, according to the district and state.

The Michigan Department of Education has congratulated New Haven High School for substantial academic improvement, the district recently announced. "It was no surprise to us that your students' academic achievement improved. We've been impressed with the level of commitment your staff, students, and parents have demonstrated this past school year to help all of your students become career- and college-ready and, therefore, improve their opportunity to be successful in life," according to an Aug. 27 letter from the state.  The letter from Noel Cole, supervisor of Coordinated School Health and Safety Programs and Bob Higgins, project manager of Safe and Supportive Schools Grant, is addressed to New Haven Community Schools Superintendent …

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L'Anse Creuse Must Allow Students to Move from Schools with Performance Gaps

The new Michigan Department of Education requirement will cause L'Anse Creuse Public Schools to have to set aside $150,000 for transportation and other associated costs.

A requirement mandated by the Michigan Department of Education for schools with large gaps in performance will mean the possibility of increased school-to-school transfers in L'Anse Creuse Public Schools. As part of a set of requirements for state-named "Focus Schools," districts will–beginning in the 2012-13 school year–have to allow a number of students to move out of any school in that category and into another designated school within the district. The requirement only applies to schools that are receiving Title I dollars–a federal program that helps to fund schools with high percentages of students from low-income families. Districts are left to decide how many spots will be open for each school, but must provide transportation for …

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Graduation Rate Gap Contributes to L'Anse Creuse District's Failure to Make AYP

Despite all but one L'Anse Creuse school making AYP this year, the Michigan Department of Education reports the district as a whole failed to meet state standards.

When the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) released its school report cards Thursday, which includes the list of schools meeting state standards through Adequate Yearly Progress, L'Anse Creuse Public Schools was one of 262 districts statewide to not make AYP – a fact surprising to district officials. “It is interesting because as a district we have always made AYP and maybe a school or two did not make it,” said Deputy Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Edward Okuniewski. “This is the first time that all comprehensive schools made it, except one, and the district did not made it." Okuniewski said this could partially be attributed to the role graduation rates now play in calculating AYP. While L’Anse Creuse High School and …

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Macomb County Sees Record Increase in Number of Homeless Students

As of June 14, the end of the 2011-12 academic year, the MISD had identified 1,126 homeless students across the county. This represents a more than 100 percent increase over the past five years.

As teachers across Macomb County compute final grades for the 2011-12 school year, the Macomb Intermediate School District is considering the implications of a much different calculation, namely, the now record number of homeless students in the county. At the end of 2011, 665 homeless students were identified and assisted by the MISD—a then 41 percent increase over the previous year. However, as of June 14, the close of the 2011-12 academic year, the MISD had identified 1,126 homeless students who will need assistance for fall 2012.   Those students represent some 537 Macomb County families with approximately 2,065 members, including parents and children below school age. More than 80 percent of these families have never been homeless …

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Jenny Whalen

11:54 am on Monday, June 18, 2012

You hit the nail on the head, Dagmar. How can students focus on their education when they're worrying about where their family will be sleeping that night? You do hear about those select few who break the cycle - manage to get all A's, snag a scholarship, go to Harvard - but that is not the norm.   more ›

Michigan Department of Education Plans for New Online-Based Assessments

Changes will take place during the 2014-2015 school year.

Paper and pencil for statewide tests will soon be a thing of the past for Michigan students as they prepare to take a new online assessment detailed during a roundtable Monday by the Michigan Department of Education. The exam will replace the standardized MEAP and MME assessments in math, reading and writing, beginning during the 2014-2015 school year. The MEAP and MME assessments will still be given in science and social studies. But unlike the tests students are used to, the new statewide exam will not have a common set of questions. Subsequent questions will be determined based on how a student answers the previous one. A correct answer yields a harder one. An incorrect responce yields an easier question. The goal is to have students …

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Macomb School Districts See Increase in Homeless Students Over 2011

With reductions in state welfare, homeless children and their families will rely more on local agencies and school districts for aid in the new year.

Home to sprawling suburbs, shopping centers and Blue Ribbon schools, Macomb County does not fit the description of an area to know homelessness.  But it does. In the four school districts that serve Macomb Township, 206 students were reported as homeless by the Michigan Department of Education in 2011. In the county, 665 homeless students have been identified and assisted by the Macomb Intermediate School District this year—a 41 percent increase over last year said MISD Homeless Education Liaison Kathleen Kropf. And though the term “homeless” may summon images of cardboard boxes beneath freeway overpasses, the 2002 McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (Subtitle VII-B) defines “homeless children and youth” only as those who lack “a fixed…

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Chippewa Valley, L'Anse Creuse Schools, Others Implementing Common Core Initiative

Michigan and 45 states across the country brace themselves for rigorous curriculum requirements for K-12 classrooms.

In preparation for sweeping changes to school curriculum, Macomb Township's teachers are among those working to modify lesson plans so that they are in step with new academic standards approved statewide. For instance, most ninth-graders, who might normally take Algebra, will take a new course called Secondary Mathematics 1, or an honors version of that course, which will include concepts in algebra, geometry, statistics, and pre-calculus. Language arts, meanwhile, will also be heavily revised to include more complex reading, and more emphasis on persuasive writing. These changes and more are slowly being rolled out in school districts around Michigan to comply with the Common Core initiative adopted by the Michigan Department of Education…

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Jenny Whalen

4:10 pm on Tuesday, December 20, 2011

You bring up a great point about the IB schools. In high school, I saw a lot of exchange students take classes one or two grades above those taken by American students their age. The reason? The pace of study was that different between their country's education system and ours. A little compatibility would make foreign study easier/more attractive for sure.   more ›

Macomb Schools Test Scores Take a Hit Under New Cut Scores

A look at recent MEAP and MME scores by Macomb Township students under the state's new cut scores show a drop in the percentage deemed "proficient."

The Michigan Department of Education on Thursday released what it calls a “retrospective look” at how students would have fared on past MEAP and MME exams if new scoring standards had been in place–and none of Macomb Township’s public school districts escaped the statewide decline in proficiency levels. The new standards, adopted by the State Board of Education in September, changed state cut scores—the scores used by schools to determine whether a student is advanced, proficient, partially proficient or not proficient in certain subjects. Overall, the results released Thursday show a major decline in student test scores on the Michigan Merit Exam (MME) and the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) in math, reading, science and …

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Schools in the News

New Haven High On State Lowest-Achieving School List

The school will implement changes this school year to improve academics after being on the list for two consecutive years, according to the district.

For the second consecutive year, New Haven High School was named on the state's Persistently Lowest Achieving School list, according to the Michigan Department of Education's Friday announcement. The high school, which has about 370 students from New Haven and Macomb, Chesterfield, Lenox and Ray townships, was named after review of "student achievement over two years, academic improvement over three or four years; whether a school made Adequate Yearly Progress status over the past two years; and whether a school had a graduation rate below 60 percent for three years in a row," according to the state. New Haven Community Schools Superintendent Keith Wunderlich said Friday the district has a 200-page plan to turn around the high school in …

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