Washington – Schools affected by the Gulf Coast hurricanes may get a one-year delay on federal penalties if they can show that the storms derailed them from making yearly prog ress.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced the plan Thursday, an offer of temporary relief to schools hit by the hurricanes and the ones enrolling thousands of evacuees.
Spellings has been flexible with school chiefs in the devastated Gulf Coast region, but she had not offered leeway, until now, on progress required by the No Child Left Behind Act.
Her move reflects an effort by the Bush administration to show it will heed the concerns of schools but will not give much ground on the need to improve reading and math scores.
An estimated 372,000 students were displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
State leaders have asked Spellings for help, arguing it is not fair to evaluate them on yearly progress when some schools have been destroyed and others have enrolled thousands of evacuees.
Typically, schools that receive federal aid and don’t make enough yearly progress for two straight years must offer students the chance to transfer.
Schools that fall short for three straight years must offer poor children tutoring. The penalties get steeper by the year.
Under the new plan, schools that fall short will not advance along that penalty timeline if they sustained substantial damage from Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Rita and if they are in a federally declared disaster area in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi or Texas.
Yet they must test students next spring and prove that the reason the schools missed their required progress goals was the effect of the hurricanes.
The No Child Left Behind law allows schools the one-year exemption from penalties in times of natural disasters.
Making yearly progress means schools must show sufficient gains among all groups of students, including the poor and disabled.
Spellings said Thursday that for this school year, states may seek permission to create another subgroup of students – those displaced by the hurricanes.
That would help schools isolate how the storms have affected test scores, department aides said.
