Pleasant View efforts recognized with Torch Award

Improved test scores, spurred by multiple grant programs, have scored Pleasant View Elementary School District one of the first annual Torch Awards given by the Tulare County Office of Education.

The award, new this year, aims to recognize academic achievement in Tulare County schools or school districts.

Pleasant View is the only Porterville district to receive the award. Eight were distributed.

“When you get recognized outside of your school, it’s a great feeling,” Pleasant View Principal Mark Odsather said.

He is principal at Pleasant View Elementary, for kindergarten and first-grade students, as well as Pleasant View West, which serves second through eighth grade students.

Odsather said Reading First, a federal grant awarded to Pleasant View in 2006 - 2007, has been instrumental in assisting students lift their reading scores.

The program provided funds for coaches provided professional development and lesson plan assistance to teachers.

“With the Reading First and High Priority [grants] ... it’s had a huge impact on the quality of teaching and the education our students are receiving,” Odsather said.

Superintendent Collin Bromley said the programs played an essential role in Pleasant View’s improved Academic Performance Index scores.

API measures academic performance and is based on standardized test scores from students in second through eighth grade.

“It shows that we’re doing what we need to do, and working in their right direction to hit our API,” Bromley said.

Odsather said the increasing scores have surpassed expectations.

“There was a time when we wondered if we would ever meet 600, then 700,” he said.

Pleasant View West had an API score of 743 this year.

For the first time, more students scored in or above the Basic category in reading than in mathematics.

“[That] historically hasn’t happened,” Odsather said.

Pansy Cebellos, TCOE assistant superintendent, of instructional services, said the action plan put in place in conjunction with the High Priority grant played a main role in the school’s award.

Ceballos said the addition of “special materials” for lower scoring students showed a desire to assist those student’s academic aims.

She said staff gave “real attention to addressing the needs of those struggling students.”

The school’s improved test scores “brought them to the attention” of TCOE staff, who were then impressed with the application of the action plan, Ceballos said.

She said there are many Tulare County schools that deserve recognition for improving academic performance in innovative ways.

“We felt there was a need to acknowledge people that are working hard. We’ve seen steady growth in Tulare County [schools] for about five years now,” Ceballos said.

Pleasant View has recently been awarded another grant.

According to Odsather, the Gear Up grant is meant to help “create a college-going atmosphere on campus.”

The program will provide a $2,000 college scholarship for an eighth-grade student.

The money will earn interest in an account until the student graduates from high school.

-- Contact Sarah de Crescenzo at 784-5000, Ext. 1045, or sdecrescenzo@portervillerecorder.com.