Performance at Whispering Wind Elementary School

Whispering Wind is an Excelling school, as rated by the Arizona Department of Education

What is AZ LEARNS?
Arizona School Achievement Profiles

AZ LEARNS is the Arizona Department of Education's school accountability system. The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) defines purposeful school accountability as fair and accurate measurements of school performance that are designed to publicly identify and improve schools. The ADE has developed AZ LEARNS to meet the accountability requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, all schools are required to make adequate yearly progress toward ensuring that all students are able to demonstrate proficiency on the required state academic and performance standards.

The ADE provides a school classification for all public schools (district and charter) that have been in operation for a minimum of three academic years. Schools can be classified as Excelling, Highly Performing, Performing or Under Performing. The AIMS and Stanford 9 results are used to determine the classifications given to schools.

A school is classified as failing only after three consecutive Underperforming classifications. Elementary schools are evaluated based on several indicators: AIMS scores, Measure of Academic Progress (MAP which is calculated using SAT 9 scores), Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), as well as the percentage of students exceeding the standard on AIMS. High schools are evaluated based on several indicators as well: AIMS scores, graduation rate, dropout rate, AYP and the percentage of students exceeding the standard on AIMS.