On Aug. 31, the California Department of Education released its 2004 Accountability Progress Report. The report, which gives a snapshot of the state's public schools over the last school year, showed that Campbell Middle School hadn't met all of its performance targets. It was the third year in a row that the middle school failed to make its target, but Campbell Union School District Superintendent Johanna VanderMolen said she's confident things will turn around.

"It's disappointing," she said. "But Campbell Middle School has a great staff, and I'm sure they'll make all the improvements the school needs. We've been taking a proactive role to support improvement efforts."

The report—meant to measure the academic performance and growth of schools—is based on the Academic Performance Index, which is considered the cornerstone of California's Public School's Accountability Act of 1999.

A school's score on the index is supposed to be an indicator of its performance level, and the numbers are based on a numeric index from a low of 200 to a high of 1,000. The statewide API performance target for all schools is 800.

Since the state implemented the criteria from the federally mandated No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, schools that have scores less than 800 are also measured in terms of how much they have improved over the course of the year. This so-called adequate-yearly-progress score measures not the raw performance score of a school, but how much the school and its various subgroups have improved.

Campbell Middle School earned a score of 670, an improvement of just 6 points from the 664 scoring it received the previous year.

Last year, some subgroups within the school had lagged behind slightly, yet all of them showed marked improvement this year. These include the socioeconomically disadvantaged and Hispanic/Latino subgroups.

Although the disadvantaged-students subgroup improved, it didn't improve enough to show adequate progress, said Susan Zimmer, the new principal at Campbell Middle School.

"We just missed our target," she said. "It was close."

However, federal policy mandates that the numbers have to be met. A deviation of even a point or two from the target affects a school's federal funding.

Zimmer recognizes that close isn't enough and she's ready to work on improving the scores.

VanderMolen said the district has been aware of the school's performance for a while and has recently appointed Zimmer as the school's principal to address the issue.

Zimmer, a former teacher at Campbell Middle School, said she understands the challenges ahead of her and is up to the task.

"My familiarity with the campus will help us hit the ground running," she said. "I had taught here before and I was an intervention specialist, so I know that the school has an incredibly diverse and rich student body."

She said her staff is already refocusing, taking care to be strategic in their efforts. Planned improvements include providing more enrichment classes and more support for subgroups.

Training staff to tailor their efforts for the needs of various students is also in the cards, VanderMolen said, adding, "And we're working with the staff to make sure they know each and every kid so that they can give them the independent attention needed to succeed."

She said the staff at Campbell Middle School knows what's ahead.

"There's been no denial on anyone's part," she said. "Everyone just wants to make it work."