The Kingston City School District has been classified as a focus school district.
"We're required to have accountability designations for public schools in New York State," said Deputy Superintendent for Teaching and Learning John Voerg. "The lowest 15 percent of the performing districts in New York State are designated as focus schools districts."
Four city schools, including Chambers and Edward Crosby Elementary School and J. Watson Bailey and M. Clifford Miller middle schools were given a "needing focus" designation by the state. It’s the middle of three designations the state gives based on various classifications. Officials said the designation focuses on two sub-groups.
"Economically disadvantaged students and that's based on their student performance on standardized tests, specifically the3-8 [grades] ELA and math test, so that particular sub-group is one are,a and the other sub-group area is our Hispanic four-year graduation rate," Voerg said.
Officials said they are currently working on building programs to assist children in those groups.
"We're constantly looking at all of our information, certainly all of our data, and then we’re sharing that with our schools," Voerg said.
Officials said the remaining six city schools in the district are on the "good standing" list, and one of those schools is Kingston High School.
"We're working on increasing our common planning time and we spend a lot of time knowing our students," said Kingston High School Principal Kirk Reinhardt. "We know who are at-risk students. We've gone to a cohort model, so we work as a team, and the same team follows the student for four years and we meet the needs of our student."
Reinhardt said school staff is constantly working with the Hispanic student population.
"We are going to do everything we can to help our students be successful and that's meeting the needs of that student," Reinhardt said. "If that student needs a tutor or help with their reading, that's what they’re going to get. If we need to create a Spanish-speaking history class, that's what we’re going to do."
District officials said the goal is for all schools to be on the "good standing list" in the next few years.
"We follow a consistent rubric for measuring our effectiveness as a district and as a school district, so that creates a common language between all of our schools," Voerg said.