HIGHLAND | The School Board supported a U.S. House resolution designed to improve the No Child Left Behind Act on Tuesday during its executive meeting.

The three members who were present followed the urgings of the National School Board Association to support the new resolution, House Resolution 648. The two other members were absent. If approved nationally, HR 648 would revisit certain areas of the federal education act of 2002, School Board President Carol Green-Fraley said.

"This is something that needs to be revamped but it has been put on the back burner, so it's time to wake up the government to look at it again," said Luanne Jurczak, the board's newly elected vice president. "It's a good thing to have something that makes people accountable, but you have to take into consideration the individual student, and it is not doing that."

The resolution focuses on areas of assessment and coordination of test scores of special education students, but it also includes measurement of adequate yearly progress, sanctions, restructuring, state flexibility and nonpublic schools.

"The No Child Left Behind Act pushes us and gives us goals and rules to live by, but special education students are not meeting standards," Superintendent Michael Boskovich said. "I think we need to look at this."

Under No Child Left Behind, the nation's public schools are graded by almost 40 categories or subgroups, including special education, ethnicity, free and reduced-price lunch, and economic status.

Students are required to achieve a minimum of 65.7 percent in English and 64.3 percent in math.

But Green-Fraley said there is a serious problem with funding that does not match the expectations for every school district.

Boskovich told about a dozen residents at the meeting that board members plan to send copies of the board's resolution to all the federal and state legislators to let them know of their support of the House resolution.

The School Town of Highland made adequate yearly progress during the 2006-07 school year, said Sherrie Mitchell, director of curriculum and instruction.

In individual scores, one elementary school was in improvement from the previous year, but students increased by 6 percentage points this year, she said.

The district's remaining three elementary schools and its high school made adequate yearly progress, she added.

"The middle school did not because of special education students who are not passing ISTEP," Mitchell said. "It's unfair to expect a first-grader to jump as high as a middle school student."