Radical reform: 'Lowest achieving' Watsonville High School faces new requirements for change
WATSONVILLE -- The label of failing school is nothing new to Watsonville High.
Since California implemented a standardized testing and school ranking plan a little more than a decade ago, the school has scored at or near the bottom.
The latest reminder of its lagging efforts to improve student achievement came Thursday when the state Board of Education designated Watsonville and four other Pajaro Valley schools among 188 "persistently lowest-achieving" schools.
Watsonville has made progress, but by state and federal standards the pace has been too slow and the new designation comes with a requirement for radical reform, including such measures as replacing the principal and at least half the faculty.
Principal Murry Schekman, who stands to lose his job under any of the reform scenarios, doesn't disagree with the state and federal assessment of his school.
"We can do better," said Schekman, who's in his fourth year as principal. But he added that last year's 21-point gain on the state's Academic Performance Index, after nearly flat scores in the previous three years, shows the school's finally on the right track. "Our reforms are in place, and we're just going to keep on doing it."
STRUGGLING SCHOOL
In 1999, when the state first introduced the Academic Performance Index, which uses standardized test results to score and rank schools, the goal was to achieve 800 points or more. Watsonville scored 475, in
