Superintendent: Biggs school shouldn't be on state list

Biggs Middle School in Butte County should not have been included on a list of low-achieving schools in California and the state superintendent will recommend a waiver removing the middle school from the list, the superintendent for Biggs Unified says.

"We have improved our scores," said Bill Cornelius, superintendent for the Biggs Unified School District.

A total of 188 schools in the state, among approximately 10,000 in California, were on the preliminary listing by the California Department of Education released Monday.

Cornelius said that State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell will ask the state Board of Education on Thursday for the Biggs waiver. Other schools in California are performing more poorly than the Butte school, Cornelius said.

He said that he is in his third year as superintendent and that student scores at Biggs Middle School have increased since 2007-08.

"We're moving in the right direction," he said. "It's a really neat school."

Schools identified as persistently low-achieving must engage in an intervention model as required by state and federal law, the Department of Education said. Ella Elementary in Olivehurst was the only other Mid-Valley school on the state's preliminary list.

The state agency could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.