Adams-Cheshire District Creating Plan to Increase Test Scores
CHESHIRE, Mass. — Another year of subpar standardized test scores has administrators in the Adams-Cheshire Regional School District seeking ways to improve performance.
"What we need to do is more parent outreach and work with students, teachers and administration because it is going to have to be a broad initiative if we want to be successful because we have to turn around what has been a steady trend for a long time," interim Superintendent Robert Putnam told the School Committee on Monday.
He provided the committee with an overview of the test scores and how they influenced the state's leveling of the schools and district — and how the administration was planning to address the problem.
"The discussion has focused on the implementation of existing initiatives and on tweaking school improvements plans in ways that can focus teachers, students and families on key practices that will improve students' performances," he said.
According to the 2016 Accountability Ratings, which measure each school's progress toward the goal of reducing proficiency gaps, Cheshire Elementary School held its ground at Level 2.
Schools are rated on Levels 1 through 5 based on proficiencies.
Putnam said Cheshire's percentile ranking, which marks the school's overall performance relative to other schools that serve the same grades, dropped from 23 to 16. This would have knocked Cheshire down to a Level 3 but the school is "held harmless" for a year because students took the new Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test instead of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System.
The percentile ranking is from 1-99. Schools in the 1-20 percentiles are in the lowest-performing 20 percent of schools that educate the same grade levels.
Putnam said C.T. Plunkett Elementary in Adams held on to a Level 3 rating and the school's percentile ranking increased slightly from 4 to 6. The state said the school has to focus on students with disabilities and high needs who were a lower scoring subgroup.
Putnam said Hoosac Valley High School also was ranked 3, as it was last year, and saw a small percentile decrease from 14 to 11.
Hoosac Valley also has to focus on students with disabilities and increase the assessment participation of high needs students.
Putnam said the state noted that less than 95 percent of high-needs students participated in the test, however, this number is not entirely accurate.
Hoosac Valley Principal Jerimiah Ames said they missed 95 percent by only a few points and would have made the mark if it wasn't for a reporting error. He said some students who actually took the test were not counted through a discrepancy report.
"For example, there may be a student cataloged as a sophomore and they should have been taking the math MCAS but they may have been a sophomore for a second year and passed the math test last year but not the ELA test," Ames said. "There were a couple of these students we did not file a discrepancy report for."
He added that it would not have changed the leveling of the school if it hit the 95 percent mark.
Putnam said some families did not want students to take the test, some were absent and others were sick.
The lower scores are among the middle school students at Hoosac Valley and although the ninth and 10th-grade scores could be better. they are not holding the district back.
The superintendent said there are things the district can do to gain back some of these points.
"You can actually get points by reducing the number of students who are scoring in the failing range, increase the number of students who score in advanced," Putnam said. "There are a lot of different ways to gain points and these are things we will be looking at."
School Committee member Stephen Vigna said the school can only do so much and advocated for community outreach.
"It is a community thing and everything starts in the home so I think maybe we have to start thinking outside of the box," Vigna said. "Leading up to the test, we need to get the towns involved in some kind of marketing scheme or something."
School Committee member Regina Hill agreed and said there is only so much the school can do.
"We need to do outreach in the community because our teachers do amazing things the classroom," Hill said. "We still graduate kids that go to big-name schools and that do well. But a lot of those kids come from families that have some stability and our teachers and administration can only do so much."
Putnam said the school district cannot control what happens in the community or at home and can only try to inspire children.
"I see it in sports all the time. Kids play their hearts out for their coach," he said. "We need to figure out how to get kids to play their hearts out for teachers. We have to inspire them."
Tags: ACRSD, MCAS, PARCC, standardized testing,
