Superintendent Jim Robinson declared an academic emergency on Aug. 29 after the Lebanon School District was sanctioned for failing to meet highly qualified (HQ) teacher requirements and not making adequate yearly progress on state assessment tests.

Robinson said that had the district met one of the two standards, the sanctions would not likely have been imposed. Until the district is released from the sanctions, it is prohibited from hiring any additional instructional assistants.

"The logic of the penalty is instructional assistants are less well trained, less educated and not as capable as highly qualified. They're saying put the money toward hiring highly qualifieds," Robinson said.

Sand Ridge Charter School is the only district school not meeting HQ requirements. Assistant Superintendent Steve Kelley has been working with the charter school over the past few months to resolve the issue.

The main focus of the academic emergency will be on mathematics at Lebanon High School, where the students failed to met academic growth, academic status and test participation standards required by the No Left Child Act (NCLB). Although the number of students receiving passing AYP math scores improved slightly last year over the previous year - from 48.62 to 50.34 percent, the standard is 59 percent. In 2006-07, schools met standards if 49 percent of students passed the assessment tests. The percentage will continue to increase every two years until 2014 when 100 percent of students will have to pass.

"We're running a race where the finish line keeps moving away from us," Robinson said.

Scores on ACT and placement test at Linn-Benton Community College also indicated that Lebanon high school students are struggling in math, Robinson said.

LHS principal Mark Finch said in the third trimester of the 2007-08 year, 47 percent of students taking Algebra 1 received Fs and 21 percent earned Ds. Finch said he did not pull data from previous trimesters to see if those results were typical of an on-going trend.

Robinson has directed LHS and district staff to convene weekly meetings to develop standards-based reporting grading criteria, create common assessments, design effective lessons based on student outcome as well as intervening with students who are not meeting math standards.