AYP is a result of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. This federal act requires all schools in the nation to meet AYP every school year.

The much debated No Child Left Behind Act has the goal of having all students in the United States be proficient in both reading and math.

In Minnesota, AYP is determined through the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment II test (MCA II), which tests students on their reading, math and science skills.

All schools and the districts they are in that receive Title 1 funds from the federal government are required to make AYP.

The students in the schools are split into subgroups, and to make AYP, every subgroup must be proficient.

This year's AYP results were good news for the Pequot Lakes School District and Crosslake Community School.

Tami Martin, director at the Crosslake Community School, attributes most of the school's success to the teachers at the school.

"We are a quality compensation school, which is a program started by Gov. (Tim) Pawlenty a few years ago, which is incentive pay for teachers which required them to go above and beyond," Martin said.

Martin said the school made reading its focus over the past couple years and will continue to do that along with adding more of an emphasis on math this year.

The news was particularly good for the Pequot Lakes School District. The district made AYP this year after not making it last year.

Amy LaBarre, Pequot Lakes' principal of curriculum and assessment, said the district attributes its success to being intentional and to the monitoring it does throughout the year.

The schools were more aware of the standards' requirements, and, LaBarre said, were much more intentional about focusing on meeting those standards.

LaBarre also noted the close monitoring of students as a reason for improvement.

"We are not teaching students and crossing our fingers, hoping that they learned something and make AYP. There is constant monitoring throughout the school year, and that way we can catch kids and make improvements to help them right away," LaBarre said.

The AYP results for the 2008-09 school year brought bad news for the Pine River-Backus School District.

Pine River-Backus Elementary School did not make AYP for the second year. The special education subgroup failed to make proficiency in both reading and math for the past two years in the elementary school.

Due to this two-year failure to make AYP, Pine River-Backus Elementary School has been designated as a school in need of improvement.

Pine River-Backus Elementary School's status affects the district's status. Since one of the schools in the district has not met AYP for the past two years, the Pine River-Backus School District has received the status of stage one-in need of improvement.

If the school continues to not make AYP for a continuous five-year period, then restructuring of the school is called for by the government.

However, Pine River-Backus Superintendent Cathy Bettino has hopes that the district will continue to improve its scores.

"We already have a system in place to help us help our students. It is a program called ViewPoint, which allows us to identify kids that need extra help and what kind of additional support they need to be successful," Bettino said.

In a letter that is being sent to parents of students and citizens who live in the Pine River-Backus School District, Bettino outlines the district's strategies to improve scores.

Those plans include alignment of curriculum, using early intervention strategies, developing a new reading curriculum, which focuses on guided reading, continuing after-school instruction opportunities with PowerLearners, and further strategic planning with parents.

Bettino said the district is striving to meet requirements, but she is not satisfied with the MCA II testing.

"I don't think that the test and the analysis of it reflects the potential of our students and what they have done the past year," Bettino said.

Whether the news was good or bad, all the schools have plans to continue to improve their scores and the education they are giving their students.