DUBOIS – The DuBois Area School District gets adequate yearly progress through No Child Left Behind test results, but board members are concerned over Pennsylvania State of School Assessment tests.
Director of Assessment and Student Services Jackie Canter gave a presentation to the DuBois Area School Board Thursday night on the results of the school district from tests given in the 2008-2009 school year.
In general the district did well across the board, showing some growth in students. Of the 172 targets the district met 165 for NCLB. The collective ninth through twelfth grade was the only area that did not meet adequate progress in both reading and math. Most of the problems seemed focus around the high school and the eleventh grade.
While there was some concern initially about the impact of these students on the DuBois School District’s results in the NCLB those students were left out of the equation in the manually compiled information based of the PSSA tests by Canter. These results comparing the district’s grades to the state average did not escape comments.
“How can we go from grade eight with 78 percent to 50 percent [in the eleventh],” asked Board Member John Yount.
The 2009 PSSA tests were given to the third through eighth and eleventh grades. The eighth grade had 77.9 percent of the students rated proficient in mathematics compared to the state average of 71.3 percent.
This drops down to only 54.3 percent in the eleventh grade compared to the state average 55.6 percent.
Of the four subjects tested by the PSSA the only increase in proficiency from the eighth grade students of the 2008/2009 school year when compared to the eleventh grade students was in writing.
This was also the only subject where the eleventh grade beat the state average.
The drop in math noted by Young was across the board. Only 60.5 percent of the district’s current seniors were rated proficient in reading. When it comes to science only 36.9 percent of the current seniors are considered proficient in science, but this is compared to the 39.7 percent state average.
For comparison the 85.2 percent of the then eighth graders were proficient in reading. When it came to reading 71.3 percent were found to be proficient. In science 63.0% were proficient. The current ninth graders were above state average across the board.
“There is a plan. A fifteen point plan,” said Canter.
The school district is already looking at ways to prevent students from being “lost” once they enter high school.
“I don’t think [Jeff Tech] students are in there,” said Canter regarding the PSSA information.
On the NCLB results, students who left the district’s schools to attend Jeff Tech during the day were counted as part of the district for the first time on these results. When the sudden decline in proficiency was noticed it had been mentioned by the board that perhaps the Jeff Tech students were tied into the drop.
Canter put the PSSA comparison together herself, and during the meeting stated she was pretty sure she did not consider the Jeff Tech students for the proficiencies.
“We’re just concerned over the kids that leave to Jeff Tech in the ninth grade and come back to us in the eleventh,” explained Canter after the meeting.
Students not taking normal classes between the well performing eighth grade and the under performing eleventh grade would have been an easy to spot problem had they been included in the data that raised concerns.
The school district and Jeff Tech plan on working closer together in the future to help students in any case.