All seniors on track to graduate in June passed the California High School Exit Exam by January. The state rankings for all public school released last week showed Mt. Carmel with perfect 10-10 scores.

JIM BAIRD / Union-Tribune

Jack O'Connell, state superintendent of public instruction (center), toured Mt. Carmel High School yesterday. He was flanked by Tom McCoy, Mt. Carmel principal (left), and Don Phillips, superintendent of Poway Unified School District. Mike Bird, physics teacher, was on the far left.

School officials yesterday got a chance to share campus accomplishments with State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell who released the latest figures on exit exam pass rates earlier in the day.

Nearly 90 percent of California's seniors have passed the exit exam, which is a new requirement to graduate, O'Connell said. Nearly 48,000 seniors have yet to pass both the math and English language arts, but none of those are from Mt. Carmel and only a handful are from Poway Unified.

Poway Superintendent Don Phillips said that among students who have met all other graduation requirements, fewer than 10 students in the district still need to pass the exam.

O'Connell was impressed with Mt. Carmel's pass rate. While his goal is for all schools in the state to meet 100 percent proficiency by June, Mt. Carmel was one of the first in the state to have all regular students pass both portions of the exit exam. The state has granted special education students a one-year exemption to passing the exam.

Neither state nor county education officials know how many schools or districts have had 100 percent pass rates, but O'Connell said it was unlikely many schools of Mt. Carmel's size have reached the goal. The school has about 450 students in the class of 2006.

Phillips said other high schools in the district have just one or two seniors who still need to pass the exam and he expects that some passed the test earlier this month but results won't be known until May.

Students have several opportunities to take and pass the exam between their sophomore and senior years. At Torrey Pines High School, only one of 840 seniors had not passed the exam as of February but Principal Rick Schmitt is hopes the school will have a 100 percent pass rate when the next results come out in May.

Mt. Carmel Principal Tom McCoy attributed the school's exit exam proficiency to well-prepared students coming from Poway Unified's elementary and middle schools and small class sizes in ninth-grade English and Algebra classes.

Phillips also touted the district's significant gains in the recently released state and similar school rankings, which reflect how well students scored on a variety of tests in 2005. A third of the district's schools, including Mt. Carmel, had the highest ranking of 10 when compared withall schools statewide and when compared with schools with similar demographics.

O'Connell said poor and minority students still are struggling to pass the exit exam. He said an estimated 20 percent of African-American students, 31 percent English language learners and 18 percent low-income students have yet to pass both portions of the exam.

Phillips said he invited O'Connell to Mt. Carmel because of its stellar academic performance and its diversity. Mt. Carmel is the most diverse high school campus in the district and includes 56 percent white, about 15 percent Filipino, 13 percent Asian, 8 percent Hispanic and 4 percent African American.

O'Connell toured Mt. Carmel shortly before noon and got a firsthand look at the results of a school bond approved by voters in 2002.

O'Connell was one of the main architects of the initiative passed in 2000 that allowed school bonds to pass with 55 percent voter approval rather than the higher two-thirds threshold. The two-thirds requirement had doomed Poway Unified's two earlier attempts at passing a bond. The district's $198 million school bond measure passed with 57 percent approval to modernize 24 schools in the district.

Mt. Carmel is among the first four schools to be upgraded. Improvements include new science labs, expanded classrooms, a remodeled library and new plumbing throughout the campus. O'Connell visited a new classroom and a science building that is under construction and expected to be completed next month.

Copyright 2006 -- The San Diego Union-Tribune.com