A vast majority of students in the Altoona Area School District are exceeding the requirements of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal legislation.

Today the Pennsylvania Department of Education is expected to release results from the 2004 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) administered to third, fifth, eighth and eleventh grade students during the 2003-2004 school year. (Third grade results have not been received as yet and will not be included in today's report.)

AASD students scored at or above the state average in both reading and math in all three grade levels and surpassed the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) targets by a significant margin.

A percentage of students in grades five, eight and eleven who must achieve proficient or advanced scores is the AYP target. In Pennsylvania this year, at least 45 percent of fifth, eighth and eleventh grade students must earn proficient or advanced scores in reading. At least 35 percent of the students must achieve proficient or advanced scores in math.

In Altoona Area fifth grade classrooms, 67 percent of all students were proficient or advanced in reading and 71 percent were proficient or advanced in math. (The state AYP in fifth grade was 63 percent in reading and 62 percent in math.)

Some 69 percent of Altoona eighth grade students were proficient or advanced in reading and 58 percent were proficient or advanced in math. (The state AYP in eighth grade was 69 percent in reading and 58 percent in math.)

There were 64 percent of Altoona eleventh grade students who achieved proficient or advanced scores in reading and 52 percent who earned proficient or advanced scores in math. (The state AYP in eleventh grade was 61 percent in reading and 49 percent in math.)

In 2005, the AYP will increase to 54 percent in reading and 45 percent in math. Altoona Area students tested in 2004 have already surpassed these targets as well.

Students also achieved a high rate of participation - another important NCLB target. Last year, more than 98 percent of the students in these three grade levels took the test.

Student daily attendance figures surpassed the target threshold of 90 percent. In fact, a vast majority of schools' daily attendance rates exceeded 95 percent. Altoona Area High School exceeded the target graduation threshold of 80 percent.

Because of the school district's size, it does have disaggregated groups - groups of 40 or more students that are required by the law to meet or exceed AYP targets.

While Altoona students as a whole exceeded their AYP targets in reading and math, the disaggregated group of special needs students, students who have Individualized Education Plans (IEP'S), did not.

Special needs students are required to take the same PSSA exams as their peers in the same grade level. As a result, the school district, Roosevelt Junior High School and the William P. Kimmel Alternative School are now required to develop improvement plans in an effort to increase the reading and math scores of these students.

With the help of Intermediate Unit 08, the process will begin in September.