AUGUSTA – Twenty-four Maine schools have been identified as having the greatest need for improvement because students did not meet the state standards for four years.

Schools were cited if the average Maine Educational Assessment scores in reading, writing or math were below a certain level, and if the percentage of students who didn’t meet the standards was less than a certain level between 1998 and 2002.

Most of the schools were designated because of low performance in mathematics. Just as the last time, most schools on the list are small and rural.

Three of the schools on the new list – the Ella Lewis School in Steuben, the Kermit Nickerson School in Swanville and the Trenton Elementary School – were cited last summer as part of another list of “priority schools needing improvement.”

Different criteria were used this time because of the new federal education reform law, called the No Child Left Behind Act, which stipulates that high school scores must be included, that reading and math must be looked at separately, and that the number of students taking the test must be identified.

While last year, two years of data were used to determine low performance, the new criteria are based on three or four years of results depending on the size of the school. With 20 or more students, three years of consecutive data were considered. If there are 10-19 students, four years were looked at.

The state Department of Education decided this year that schools would be identified as low performing based on only the “doesn’t meet” category on the MEAs. Last year, that category was combined with the “partially meets” category to determine low-performing schools.

But using only the lowest performing scores “gives a more accurate accounting for the performance of students,” Deputy Commissioner Judith Lucarelli said Thursday.

Under the new criteria, high schools are also cited for low performance if less than 60 percent of the students who enter ninth grade are awarded a diploma four years later. No school in Maine was identified based on the high school completion rate.

Commissioner of Education J. Duke Albanese said schools statewide “have struggled in their efforts to perform to expectations” in mathematics. While the state’s Learning Results “reflect high expectations, the state’s schools and students haven’t demonstrated desired performance in mathematics dating back to the original Maine Educational Assessment” in 1985-1986, he said.

The department will work closely with the designated schools to improve scores, and will send three “knowledgeable educators” to review MEA data, instructional practices, curriculum design, assessment methods and local school policy, Albanese said. Assistance is available to the entire district.

The new federal law stipulates that schools that don’t improve after two years must pay out of their Title 1 funds for students to transfer to another school in the district if parents request. After three years, the school must provide tutoring outside of school, also out of its federal allotment.

After five years, staff could be replaced or the state could take control of the school.

The news of their “priority” status came as no surprise to school officials, who said they already had put into place corrective measures such as new curriculum and additional teacher training. Several said their scores had improved over the last several years.

MEA scores at Searsport District Middle School likely will go up because schools in the district that send their students to Searsport have put a new math curriculum into place, said principal Kyle Price.

Stockton Springs Elementary School, which was named as a priority school on the first list, is one of those schools.

The incoming sixth grade “will have benefited” from that change, said Price.

“A single student moving to the ‘partially meets’ category from ‘doesn’t meet’ would have changed our score to less than 50 percent and we wouldn’t’ have been identified,” he said.

In Union 96, where the Ella Lewis School in Steuben was designated as low performing on both the first and second lists, Superintendent Harvey Kelley said the makeup of a class has a lot to do with how students scored. “The other piece is that we’re in our second year of new math curriculum. When [a school] changes the way instruction is delivered, it takes time for both students and teachers to get used to it,” he said.

“This is one snapshot in time about where our school is at,” said Gil Lacroix, principal of Glenburn School. “This is still a good school offering a quality education to all of its children.”

The designation means the corrective plan the school already put into place must now be approved at the state level, according to Lacroix.

“Now we have to consult with the state about whether we’re doing it the way they recommend. Before, we drove the agenda. Now they have some say. They may allow us to continue if we show them what we’ve been doing and they say we’re on the right track. I hope the state consultant will also have some good ideas we haven’t thought of,” he said.

Lucarelli said that next year school identification will not only be based on the school as a whole, but on identified subgroups.

“So there’s likely to be a lot more schools,” she said.