This identification action is in accordance with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) waiver that New York State (NYS) received from the United States Department of Education in June 2015. New York State is required to identify new Priority Schools, Focus Districts and Focus Schools no later than March 1, 2016. The 84 Focus Districts were identified because of low performance and lack of progress in ELA and Math, combined, or graduation rates for one of more accountability groups (racial/ethnic groups, low-income students, English language learners, and students with disabilities).Although we have been communicating with parents and stakeholders regularly since the New York State Education Department informed us of our preliminary designation as a Focus District, federal law requires us to provide official notification to parents regarding our accountability status. This letter outlines for you the system of accountability for the public schools of New York State, the status New York Mills Union Free School District, and our plan to address this designation through work at the district and building levels. New York State has identified schools and districts based on their rank in the State regarding student performance on State assessments. This system identifies schools in the following categories: Reward, Good Standing, Focus and Priority schools. The lowest performing 5% of schools are considered Priority Schools. The next category is Focus Schools, which either have the lowest achieving students or the lowest graduation rates for a particular subgroup or subgroups. New York Mills has been identified as a Focus District due to our subgroup of students with disabilities not achieving proficiency on the grades 3-8 State assessments.
