Port Allegany School District - Academic Achievement

Academic Achievement

In July 2012, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) released a report identifying one Port Allegany School District schools as among the lowest achieving schools for reading and mathematics in 2011. Port Allegany Elementary School was among the 15% lowest achieving schools in the Commonwealth. Parents and students may be eligible for scholarships to transfer to another public or nonpublic school through the state's Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit Program passed in June 2012. The scholarships are limited to those students whose family's income is less than $60,000 annually, with another $12,000 allowed per dependent. Maximum scholarship award is $8,500, with special education students receiving up to $15,000 for a year's tuition. Parents pay any difference between the scholarship amount and the receiving school's tuition rate. Students may seek admission to neighboring public school districts. Each year the PDE publishes the tuition rate for each individual public school district. According to the report, parents in 414 public schools (74 school districts) were offered access to these scholarships. For the 2012-13 school year, eight public school districts in Pennsylvania had all of their schools placed on the list including: Sto-Rox School District, Chester Upland School District, Clairton City School District, Duquesne City School District, Farrell Area School District, Wilkinsburg Borough School District, William Penn School District and Steelton-Highspire School District. Funding for the scholarships comes from donations by businesses which receive a state tax credit for donating. For 2013, the elementary school was removed from the lowest achieving school list.

Statewide Ranking

Port Allegany School District was ranked 450th out of 498 Pennsylvania school districts by the Pittsburgh Business Times in 2012. The ranking was based on student academic achievement as demonstrated on the last three years of the PSSAs for: reading, writing math and science. The PSSAs are given to all children in grades 3rd through 8th and the 11th grade in high school. Adapted examinations are given to children in the special education programs.

• 2011 - 447th
• 2010 - 433rd
• 2009 - 436th
• 2008 - 399th
• 2007 - 446th out of 501 school districts.

District AYP status history

In 2012, Port Allegany School District achieved AYP status, even though both schools are in School Improvement status, due to low student academic achievement. In 2011, Port Allegany School District achieved Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) even though its elementary school was among the lowest achieving in the Commonwealth. In 2011, 94 percent of the 500 Pennsylvania public school districts achieved the No Child Left Behind Act progress level of 72% of students reading on grade level and 67% of students demonstrating on grade level math. In 2011, 46.9 percent of Pennsylvania school districts achieved Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) based on student performance. An additional 37.8 percent of Pennsylvania public school districts made AYP based on a calculated method called safe harbor, 8.2 percent on the growth model and 0.8 percent on a two-year average performance. Port Allegany School District achieved AYP status each year from 2004 to 2010, while in 2003 the District was in Warning status due to lagging student achievement.