A successful appeal by Kualapuu Elementary School, a charter school on Molokai, has taken it from a bottom rating to a top rating under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, tthe Maui News reported today.

"Woo hoo!" said Kualapuu Principal Lydia Trinidad in a telephone interview Monday.

Kualapuu was one of six schools statewide that had successful appeals of a preliminary adequate yearly progress report issued in mid-July. Having been declared as meeting all the benchmarks required by the federal law, Kualapuu was lifted out of restructuring status, the most severe rating a school can receive.

Administrator Glenn Hirata of the Department of Education's Systems Evaluation and Reporting Section explained his office found that approximately 74 Kualapuu students erroneously had not been placed in a category for economically disadvantaged. After these students' test scores were calculated in the proper category, Kualapuu was found to have met proficiency levels in both reading and math.

"It was good she appealed," Hirata said of Trinidad and her staff.

Trinidad said she does not know how the student test scores were placed in the wrong category, but she is glad that her staff was able to review individual student scores and appeal the school's poor rating.

Last week, the state Department of Education reported that the final total of schools meeting adequate yearly progress increased by six to 119, or 42 percent, of 283 statewide. In Maui County, four elementary schools are in good standing, unconditional: Kula, Paia, Pukalani and Maunaloa.

Maui schools with unsuccessful appeals this year include Kahului Elementary, Kamalii Elementary, Hana High and Elementary, and Lahaina Intermediate.

At Kahului Elementary, Principal Fern Markgraf said her school won its appeal, but the recalculation of student test scores and an improvement in the school's overall reading and math proficiency levels were not enough to change its restructuring-school status.

The federal law, enacted by President Bush in 2000, requires all groups of test takers to achieve proficiency. If one fails, all fail.

Markgraf said one group at Kahului Elementary missed proficiency by one percentage point, meaning only a small number, as few as one to three students, failed to meet proficiency. "That one really hurts," Markgraf said.

Hana High and Elementary School was notified that its appeal had been rejected, but on Monday morning Principal Rick Paul said he still was questioning calculations of his school's rating.

According to Paul, public school specialists had agreed one of the students who was marked as having not graduated was taken off the list, leaving Hana School only one percentage point shy of the required 80 percent graduation rate.

Paul said he continues to question whether a student who had transferred out of the school to another country for a student exchange program was being counted as part of the campus. If not, his scores taken out of the mix could give Hana the boost it needs to change its adequate yearly progress report.

"I'm not upset," Paul said about the appeal decision, "I need clarification."

Lahaina Intermediate School Principal Marsha Nakamura could not be reached for comment Monday. In a previous interview about her appeal, she said that she wasn't expecting her school's status to change, but that her school's adequate yearly progress marks might have to be adjusted here and there.

The final No Child Left Behind status for school year 2008-09 finds 158 schools statewide in good standing, or 56 percent; 22 in school improvement, or 8 percent; eight in corrective action, or 3 percent; 17 in planning for restructuring, or 6 percent; and 78 in restructuring, or 27 percent.

On the Web:

* Adequate yearly progress complex summary and school-by-school reports: http://arch.k12.hi.us.

Claudine San Nicolas can be reached at claudine@mauinews.com.

Find more Maui news at www.MauiNews.com.