Carmichaels Area School District is located in Greene County, Pennsylvania and encompasses thirty-nine square miles. The district is comprised of the Borough of Carmichaels and Cumberland Township. Once a thriving coal mining area, the district’s campus is centrally located amid the small town of Carmichaels, and the even smaller communities of Crucible and Nemacolin. The district’s community population is approximately 7,000. The district consists of both elementary and junior-senior high schools and a student population total of 1,137 students. Of that number, 528 are high school students with the remainder attending the Elementary Center. The district’s professional staff numbers 83 with 40 in the Elementary Center and 43 in the Junior Senior High School. The general fund budget for the 2002-2003 school years was $11,192,624, while the 2003-2004 is $11,663,707, showing a 4.2% increase. Each school is served by a principal. The secondary has an assistant principal while the elementary is served by an assistant to the principal. Suffice it to say this district is small and rural. The campus is district wide, and both the elementary and secondary schools are within walking distance of each other. The district’s free/reduced lunch rate is 42.9%. The district serves an average of 260 breakfasts and 725 lunches daily. Each school has its own starting and ending time, but both the elementary and secondary schools complete a 7.25 hour day.

Various programs exist in both the elementary and secondary schools providing additional educational support. Both the elementary and secondary schools offer after-school tutoring. In addition to the after-school tutoring, the elementary offers a K-8 summer camp in both reading and math. Both the camp and the after-school programs have a recreational and an artistic component. The Elementary Center is also a school–wide Title I school. The district offers a wide variety of its own programs for special needs children, but the district also contracts with the Intermediate Unit # I for some additional special services, as needed. The Carmichaels Area Junior Senior High offers the following academic programs:

• Vocational Technical

• Academic

• College in the High School

• Advanced Placement

• Honors

All students are required to complete 25 Carmichael’ s credits in order to graduate. They must also have mastered the Pennsylvania State Standards. Carmichaels Area Junior Senior High School has four advanced placement courses. Students can be tested in US History/European History, Language and Literature, Music Theory, and Chemistry. An SAT Prep Program is incorporated into all tenth and eleventh grade schedules.

The following pages provide information about Carmichaels Area School District and student performance.

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was signed into law by President Bush on January 8, 2002, and took effect July 1, 2002. This law represents significant expansion of the federal role in K-12 education:

The NCLB legislation mandates the use of curricula and techniques grounded in scientifically based research for any federally funded programs. States must adopt challenging academic content and student achievement standards that apply to all schools and to all children. Academic content standards must specify what children are expected to know and be able to do.

Pennsylvania currently has in place the Pennsylvania State System Assessment (PSSA) for math and reading for grades 5, 8, & 11, with grade 3 having been added for 2003. By law beginning in 2005-2006, all students must be assessed on an annual basis in grades 3 through 8 in mathematics and reading or language arts. Assessments must be aligned with the state standards. In 2007-2008 states must also assess science.

The ultimate goal of each state’s accountability system is to ensure that all students will reach the proficient level of achievement by the 2013-2014 school years.

Individual schools that fail to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for two successive years are placed on a school improvement list. That school must develop a plan to improve its PSSA scores and meet the appropriate percentages for two consecutive years to be removed from the school improvement list. Also, all students attending that school must be given the opportunity to attend another school in the district or in another district (with approval from that district) starting with the lowest achieving students from low-income families. Title I will pay for transporting the student to another school either in or out of the district. However, if a child’s parents/guardians choose to move their student out of the district, it is the parent/guardian’s responsibility to pay the tuition of the receiving school district.

If a school fails to make AYP for three consecutive years, the district must offer school choice, as it did in year 2, and provide supplemental services to enhance performance goals for the individual students.

A school that fails to make AYP for 4 consecutive years, must offer school choice, provide supplemental services, and carry out one of the following corrective actions as defined in the law:

1. Replace staff, including administrator

2. Institute new math, reading, and/or language arts curriculum

3. Extended school day or year

4. Decrease management authority at the school level

5. Appoint and outside expert to advise school

6. Restructure the internal organizational structure of the school

After 5 consecutive years of failure to make AYP, the school must develop a plan to restructure the educational process in that building.

If a school fails to make AYP for 6 consecutive years, the state will take control of the school and initiate changes to increase the percentage of students in the proficient level of the PSSA.