Many of the goals that North High School has established for itself center on the belief of teaching the “whole student,” the development of complex thinkers, the advancement of citizens that are able to contribute to society, and the creation of effective communicators.  These goals have formed a baseline for the assessment of our school as a whole and have driven the stakeholders of North High School to closely examine what we do well and what needs to be improved in order to better serve our students and school community.  The following chapter provides a summary of the data presented in chapter one and provides a brief analysis of this data.  The following analysis will serve as a foundation for the progression of North High, and as a way to focus our improvement effort over the next six years. 

Implications of the Data with Respect to Student Performance 

An analysis of testing data for North High including SAT/ACT data, CST data, statistics from the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE), as well as a look at North’s high UC completion rate (58.5%) and consistently high graduation rate (99.4%) provide evidence that the majority of students in attendance will be prepared to pursue a variety of options after completing their high school experience. North High School has been fairly consistent with meeting AYP goals, emphasizing and advancing the school’s API scores, and focusing fairly well on addressing the needs of significant subgroups.  The faculty and staff of the school take initiative to create programs that address identified student needs, and play an active role in driving the school’s advancement.

CAHSEE:

CAHSEE test results for North High are extremely positive with 90% of students passing the English Language Arts portion of the exam on the first attempt.  This is followed by 93% of our students able to pass the Mathematics portion of the test on the first attempt (during the census exam their sophomore year).  Scores for both sections of the CAHSEE for NHS are well above the state averages of 78% (ELA) and 76% (Math) and on target with district averages of 91% (ELA) and 93% (Math).  There is an ongoing effort at NHS to address the needs of the students who are not passing these exams on the first attempt, including a variety of tutoring programs.  These tutorial programs were established three years ago to address this group of students, but has grown to a place where not only students needing help with proficiency in English and math attend tutoring, but where many other students seek out tutoring help provided by teachers and our California Scholastic Federation (CSF) students in the library after school as well.  Tutoring sessions are in place in the library Monday through Thursday after school for any student who has not yet passed the CAHSEE.  After-school classes are also being taught each semester by two of our teachers that directly teach the skills necessary to gain proficiency in English and math to students who have not yet passed one or both of the exams.  NHS does not wait for a student to fail the CAHSEE before attempting to provide assistance.  The counseling department as well as many members of the teaching staff works hard to identify ninth- and tenth-grade students at risk of not passing on their first attempt and encourages some variety of tutoring for these students as well.  Curricular opportunities are also used after the freshman year to reteach Algebra I content in preparation for the CAHSEE.  This course then switches gear and prepares students who pass the CAHSEE in the 10^th year to resume the college-bound Geometry curriculum.