Los Nietos Middle School improves academics, sheds underperforming label

WHITTIER - Labeled as underperforming according to federal standards for more than a half-dozen years, now Los Nietos Middle School is enjoying a completely different designation - just in time for the district's 150th anniversary celebration.

Officials say the 400-student campus is the only middle school in Los Angeles County that managed this school year to exit Program Improvement (PI), a status placed on schools that fail to meet annual federal testing targets for two consecutive years.

The predominantly Hispanic and low-income Los Nietos Middle School had been languishing in PI since 2003. Things were so bad that a consultant came in to help develop an alternative governance plan for the middle school to improve student achievement.

But it paid off this year, said Los Nietos School District Superintendent Jonathan Vasquez. The middle school was able to show enough improvement in its test scores for two straight years, both schoolwide and among its low-income, Hispanic and special-education subgroups, to shed its PI status.



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