API Scores Up for Milpitas Schools

The 2011 Academic Performance Index (API) scores released Wednesday showed gains across the board at nearly every Milpitas public school and all racial subgroups.

The district's overall API rose 17 points to 849, higher than the countywide average of 827. In addition, two elementary schools, Curtner and Sinnott, broke 900, a major gain for the district.

"We've reached a milestone," said Marsha Grilli, president of the Milpitas Unified School District Board of Education.

"Despite all the budgetary issues we've had to deal with over the past years, our staff puts education first," she said. "And our students are showing that by their test scores."

Rancho and Russell middle schools are now 10 points apart. Five years ago, the gap between the two had widened to 780 and 826 respectively.

Weller Elementary showed the largest increase, with a 69-point gain. According to Principal Damon James, the API gains start with early education that begins with a student's first years of school.

"The work associated with the API score is more than just about those second- through 12th-grade students tested on those few days of late April and early May," he wrote in an email. "It begins at the pre-kinder and kinder levels with an intense focus on early literacy and problem-solving."  

He wrote, "All of us working as a professional learning community, examining data and systematically tackling how to teach certain skills to students is how we continue in this high-stakes cycle of continuous improvement."  

Michelle Dimas, assistant superintendent of educational services, agreed.

"This kind of sustained significant growth is not accidental. It is a result of hard work by staff and students, and strategic use of data to determine students' learning needs," she wrote.