Wendover High School earned a solid “C” while Anna Smith Elementary got a “D” from the Utah Department of Education according to two reports released last month.
The Utah Comprehensive Accountability System (UCAS) accountability system is required by the federal government under the waiver granted to Utah under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It is a separate system from the school grading system required under Utah law. School grades were issued earlier in September.
Both Wendover, Utah schools scored similarly on both reports and indeed mirrored their neighbors in West Wendover, Nevada.
West Wendover High School dropped a star from the previous year according to Nevada School Performance Framework Report released Monday.
According to the report WWHS earned four out of five stars for the 2011-2012 school year but just three for the recently ended 2012-13 school year.
Both the West Wendover Elementary and the West Wendover Junior High received two stars.
While the system is new, the trend of Wendover children scoring below the national average in elementary and middle school and reaching the national average by high school is not.
In fact in evaluation after evaluation that trend is the rule rather than the exception at least over the last 15 years.
While their could be several factors as to why, most local educators have cited the border towns large Latino population and the easy access to Spanish language entertainment as a major cause.
“A child comes from a Spanish speaking only home,” said former West Wendover High School Principal Fred Gorton over ten years ago. “That fine he is enrolled in the ESL program and usually is main streamed by the second or third grade. The problem is that when the student goes home they are again surrounded by only Spanish not only from their parents but also on television and the radio. Especially when they are young they are only exposed to English during the five or six hours of school and their vocabulary and grammar suffers. By the time they get to high school most have caught up and you can see it in the test scores.”
