State Performance Plan 2005-2012 - Part B - Arkansas Department Of Education (Page 8 of 277) in pdf

State Performance Plan 2005-2012 - Part B - Arkansas Department Of Education Page 8

Arkansas Department of Education Special Education Unit

Part B State Performance Plan

conform to local district policy and reflect state frameworks through course sequencing and career

course concentrations where appropriate.

Local school districts may require additional units for graduation beyond the sixteen (16) Core and the

six (6) career focus units. These may be in academic and/or technical areas. All the Core and career

focus units must total at least twenty-two (22) units to graduate.

A unit of credit shall be defined as the credit given for a course, which meets for a minimum of 120 clock

hours. A minimum average six-hour day or minimum 30-hour week is required.

The Monitoring/Program Effectiveness Section of the Special Education Unit reviews district single year

event graduation data via the Monitoring Profiles to ascertain a district’s status with regard to graduation.

Each district that triggers on the Monitoring Profiles is required to include an action plan in the district's

submission of the Arkansas Comprehensive School Improvement Plan (ACSIP). To address the localized

concerns about graduation, the monitoring staff works with the districts to develop their ACSIP plans.

Baseline Data for FFY 2004

In 2005, Arkansas school districts graduated 93 % of 12th grade students. For youth with IEPs, the

graduation rate with a regular diploma under Smart Core or Core was 88%.

The methodology used to identify districts for monitoring revealed that 91.54% of districts met or exceeded

the State special education benchmark for graduation. Seven percent of districts fell between the State

benchmark and trigger value indicating a risk for triggering in the future and two percent or six districts

were identified for possible monitoring during 2005-06 school year.

Discussion of Baseline Data

Report

Measurable and Rigorous Target

Year

The graduation rate for students receiving special education services has increased over the

FFY 2004

past four years by 40% from 63% in 2002 to 88% in 2005. During the same time reference,

all 12th grade graduation rates have remained relatively constant with less than a 1 % change,

from 92.7% in 2002 to 93.1% in 2005.

The improvement reflects (1) the inclusiveness of a regular diploma-Smart Core and Core-for

youth with and without disabilities; (2) the work of secondary transition specialists working

with school districts to help keep youth with IEPs in school through student-driven transition

planning; (3) better data collection methods and ongoing training with districts to address data

submission protocols and data review; and (4) usage of the same methodology for calculating

the graduation rate for youth with disabilities as for youth without disabilities.

To identify school districts that are graduating a significant difference of students in general

education than students receiving special education services, the ADE-SEU examined the

12th grade graduation rate for both groups. The data for this goal is retrieved from the

Arkansas Public School Computer Network (APSCN). The graduation rate is calculated by

taking the number of youth with IEPs who graduated in a given year divided by the official

12th grad enrollment number of youth with IEPs, adjusted for transferring students. The same

methodology is used to calculate the general education graduation rate. Districts may be

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State Performance Plan 2005-2012 - Part B - Arkansas Department Of Education Page 8

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