While the state standards for measuring adequacy among New Hampshire students were raised this year, the elementary and middle schools in Salem, Pelham and Windham did generally well overall, according to the results from the New England Common Assessment Program test scores.

Both Salem and Pelham high schools, however, remain in the needs-improvement category. The testing is aimed at bringing every student in the state up to a level of proficiency by the year 2014.

Students across the state in grades 3 through 8 and grade 11 were administered the NECAP test in fall 2007. Students’ progress at the school and district level is measured based on the results, and students are broken into different subgroups, including special education and economically disadvantaged, for analyzing the performance of particular groups of students.

If one of those subgroups fails to meet the bar in a particular subject area, the entire school is considered as not having made adequate yearly progress. If a school fails to meet those standards for two years in a row, it earns a “school in need of improvement” designation. Such a school needs to make adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years to exit that status.

High school students across the state were not tested last year to allow a transition from spring to fall testing, but high schools retained whatever status they earned from the prior year’s adequate yearly progress results.

In most cases, school officials say, the special education subgroup caused the school to miss the mark.

“I think that all students should achieve,” said Marilyn Woodside, assistant superintendent of Salem schools. “But I don’t think they should need to meet the same performance targets and I think there should be different ways to measure their growth.”

Salem High did not make adequate yearly progress in math or reading this year. While high school students did not test last year, Salem High retains its status as a school in need of improvement for both subjects, going on its third year for math and its second year for reading with that designation.

The Fisk, Soule, Woodbury, North Salem and Lancaster schools in Salem all made adequate yearly progress in reading and math for the 2008-09 school year. Also making adequate yearly progress for the 2007- 08 school year were the North Salem, Soule and Lancaster schools.

The Woodbury School missed the benchmarks for both reading and math for 2007-08, but showed improvement in scores this year. The Fisk School also improved, hitting both marks for 2008-09 after missing adequate yearly progress in reading last year. The Haigh School missed the mark in reading for 2008-09 but hit it in math after making both last year.

Woodside said she is pleased with the progress the elementary schools made, particularly in math, and added the practices used to improve the special education subgroup’s performance are spread over the entire school.

The math curriculum has been improved to apply math more throughout the school day, Woodside said.

“You have to have patience and let your program and curriculum take time to work,” said Woodside.

Pelham and Windham

The adequate yearly progress results for schools in the Pelham and Windham school district, School Administrative Unit 28, were mixed.

After making adequate yearly progress in both reading and math for the 2007-08 year, Windham Center School missed the mark in reading for 2008-09. Because Golden Brook, being a kindergarten through grade 2 school, did not take the test, Windham Center’s results are applied to Golden Brook as a means of comparison.

Windham Middle School’s students succeeded in making adequate yearly progress for 2008-09, as they did for 2007-08. Both Pelham Elementary and Memorial made adequate yearly progress for math but missed it in reading for 2008- 09.

Pelham Elementary met the benchmarks in both reading and math last year and Memorial missed the mark in both subjects for 2007-08. Memorial remains a school in need of improvement pending the next round of testing and enters its first year as a school in need of improvement for math.

Pelham High made the grade in reading but not in math for 2008-09, having not been tested for the 2007-08 results. Roxanne Wilson, assistant superintendent of Pelham and Windham schools, said all schools made overall adequate yearly progress, but as in other schools across the state, the special education subgroup brought the scores down.

“I think it’s an issue of reality. It’s very hard to expect that we’re going to have 100 percent of students proficient by 2014,” Wilson said, adding that increase in the actual scores shows the schools are making progress. Wilson said school officials will look closely at the math curriculum after reading practices put into place last year, particularly at the middle school, seemed to help.