OLYMPIA — Required by the federally mandated No Child Left Behind Act, the Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction recently released the the names of schools and districts identified by the federal government as “needing improvement.”

Twenty schools and four districts across the state completed two years of successful academic progress and are exiting the list, while 248 schools’ and 28 districts’ progress was not enough to stay off of the “improvement” list.

The list is still preliminary as school districts have the opportunity to appeal through the state and review the calculated data which could affect a school’s status.

North Kitsap High School appeared on the preliminary list for the first time this year while Spectrum Community School remained for its third consecutive year.

“At this time, we’re not really worried about NKHS,” said NKSD assistant director of learning and support Dixie Husser. “All (13) of the different categories except for Special Ed met standard.”

Regardless, both NKHS and Spectrum Community School will be required to send a notice to the parents of their students reporting that it did not meet adequate yearly progress in 2006.

To be put on the list, a school must miss its adequate yearly progress goals for two consecutive years in the same subject area — reading or mathematics. To be removed from the list, a school must meet the uniformly-applied state academic goals, also for two years in a row.

This year, Spectrum met its adequate yearly progress, yet will remain on the list until a second consecutive year of progress is reported.

However, in Spectrum’s case, this has been tricky in the past because a school must have 10 or more students in the testing cell in order for its scores to be reportable. While this number hasn’t always been available for the testing cells at the community school, this year, Spectrum’s sophomore class taking the WASL has 16 students.

“They will remain on step one until they have enough students take the assessment,” Husser said.

She added that the NKSD plans to review the data that was used in the adequate yearly progress calculation for NKHS and appeal the school’s status on the list — the decision of which will be made later this fall.

“I want parents to know that regardless of their school or district being on a list, there is far more to the quality of their child’s education than this federal measure,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson said.