Failing to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in school performance is an unfortunate reality in the public education system since the implementation of the federal No Child Left Behind law in 2001.

It is a reality the principal at Evansville Elementary School knows all too well. Evansville was informed last year that it had failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress in the 2001-02 school year.

"It was just really devastating," Donna Mathern, Evansville Elementary's principal, said Wednesday. "The morale was affected at our school because people here are working so hard to do things for kids, and it was like that simple message made it seem we weren't doing anything to help kids here. There was a sort of guilt by assumption."

The news of the school failing to meet AYP not only affected the staff, but the students and parents as well.

"I had one girl come up to me and ask if it was true that we were a bunch of losers for not meeting some test," Mathern said. "There were also parents who would ask me why we were rated so low when they saw our teachers working so hard."

Adequate Yearly Progress is measured by how much a school progresses on language and math scores on the Wyoming Comprehensive Assessment System (WyCAS) test given to 4th, 8th and 11th grade students. Mathern believes that system is flawed because it only measures the progress of one class during one week of the entire year and it does it by using a multiple choice, standardized test.

"I had one student in particular who is a great student, who just happens to not be good at taking tests," she explained. "His mother and I both knew the tremendous daily work he was doing, but he just didn't do well when tested on a multiple-choice test."

While she expects a new measurement to be developed by the State Department of Education, Mathern said WyCAS will be used until that happens.

"If we are going to hold schools this accountable, kids deserve to have a measurement that takes into consideration what they learn day-to-day and how they perform day-to-day, not just a snapshot," Mathern said.

It was after they received the bad news that Evansville began evaluating better reading and math programs that would serve their students the best. The school implemented a guided math program and a similar guided reading program that enabled it to meet the state standards last school year.

"We brought in a reading program called 'Literacy First' that the teachers had spent the previous summer training for," Mathern said. "We have done something so unique with math that I just think we're ahead of the game over everybody in it."

The math program tailors instruction to individual students, teaching them at the level they are and growing as they get better. It parallels the guided reading approach, she said, in that students progress at their own speed rather than being tied to the general progress of the majority of students in their classroom.

"Too many students are in classes where there are some that are more advanced than their grade level and some that aren't meeting their grade level," Mathern said, "so what happens is the teacher just shoots for the middle and hopes to get everyone."

The progress that Evansville is enjoying is a testament to a school that proactively found a solution to its shortcomings, according to Joel Dvorak, the district's associate superintendent of curriculum and instruction.

"I think that Donna Mathern and her teachers have done a great job of focusing their instruction to help kids meet standards," Dvorak said. "The fact that they are differentiating their instruction in math makes wonderful sense. It meets the needs of all the learners in the building and I just applaud the energy and the effort that Donna and her staff have put toward that instruction."

Just because certain programs have worked for Evansville, however, doesn't mean they will work as simple solutions to every school, Dvorak stressed.

"You could take these approaches and just put them into a school, but it wouldn't work without the level of dedication it takes to make them successful," Dvorak said. "You only get out of the program what you put in to it and it takes a concerted effort from everyone."

That concerted effort, for Evansville, has seemed to pay off. The thrill of success is infectious at the school and it has made the kids excited to back in the classroom, Mathern said.

"One good thing is that some of our kids this year came back and they are really pumped," Mathern said. "They said, 'You know, I did so good last year and I'm going to do even better this year,' because they had success last year. I had kids knocking at my window for a week or two before school started, telling me, 'I can't wait for school to start.'"