Howard County school officials are planning to place extra staff and programming at five county schools that missed state progress targets on key reading and math tests last school year.

One of the schools, Oakland Mills Middle School, has missed its targets for three consecutive years and also will be monitored by the state.

Oakland Mills is the first Howard County school to miss its targets three years in a row since officials began tracking progress on the tests, the Maryland School Assessment, in 2003.

The four other county schools that missed the progress targets during testing in the 2007-2008 school year, according to data released Aug. 14 by the Maryland State Department of Education, are Bollman Bridge Elementary School and Patuxent Valley Middle School, in Jessup, and Stevens Forest Elementary School and Harper's Choice Middle School, in Columbia.

Local school officials plan to allocate additional staff and resources to the schools, which, depending on each school's needs, might include reading and math specialists, additional assistant principals, additional money for after-school tutoring and computer programs for students, and professional development workshops for teachers, according to curriculum directors Clarissa Evans and Marie DeAngelis.

If a school misses the progress targets for one year, state officials ask that local education officials bolster their efforts at the school. If a school fails to meet the standard for more than one year, the state reserves the right to take corrective measures at the school.

The tests measure the proficiency of students in third through eighth grades in math and reading. Officials monitor progress on the tests annually as a requirement of the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Officials released schools' scores on the tests in July and this month calculated whether schools had made sufficient improvement since the previous year.

Schools are expected to continually improve their scores, including the scores of student groups broken down by grade, gender, race, English proficiency, special education programs and those who receive free or reduced-price meals.

Howard County Superintendent of Schools Sydney Cousin said that, in most cases, the Howard schools missed the state progress targets by a slim margin and that extra academic support will be added at those schools.

"We still have some gaps that we have to deal with," he said. "... We want to be sure to raise (scores for) all of our kids."

Oakland Mills monitored

This year at Oakland Mills Middle, students who qualify for reduced-price meals -- the school system's measure of poverty -- did not meet the reading target.

In 2007, the same group missed the reading target, along with black students and those in special education. In 2006, the school's special education students missed the reading target.

The school has met all of its math targets.

Portia White, the Howard system's testing coordinator, said state educators will monitor Oakland Mills in the coming year, although she was unsure to what extent the state would be involved.

"There is progress there," White said of Oakland Mills. "We don't know the specific details at this point, but there will be some monitoring because that's required by the state."

State officials have labeled Oakland Mills Middle as a school that needs "focused support," since just one segment of its student population missed a target, Evans said.

Schools where students miss multiple progress targets require "comprehensive support."

"The state recognizes that they're improving," Evans said of Oakland Mills Middle. "We're really pleased with the progress we've seen there. It was just not quite enough."

Last summer, school officials assembled an "intervention team" at Oakland Mills and kept a record of supports put in place by the team that was made available for state review, Evans said, adding that those efforts will continue and intensify this year.

"We feel like what we've been doing has had the desired effect, but we're going to intensify that now," she said.

Oakland Mills Middle principal Cynthia Dillon could not be reached for comment.

At Bollman Bridge, special education students and those who qualify for reduced-price meals missed the math target.

Stevens Forest's special education students missed the target in math.

At Patuxent Valley, special education students missed the reading target.

At Harper's Choice, special education students missed the math target.

Although the students at Murray Hill Middle School, in North Laurel, posted sufficient progress in 2008, state educators will continue to monitor the school since it missed its targets in 2006 and 2007, officials said.

Reporter Sarah Daniels contributed to this article.

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