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Superintendent Douglas Dias and Principal Joelle Brookner address the School Committee on Wednesday about the school's spring 2016 standardized test results.

Williamstown Elementary Earns Level 1 Status, State Commendation

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williamstown Elementary School passed its first year under a new standardized testing regime with flying colors, the School Committee learned on Wednesday.

Last spring marked the first time the school's pupils were evaluated by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, test in place of the commonwealth's traditional Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System.

This week, the school administration told parents that the school had received a commendation from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for "high achievement and high progress."

"One of the things I found most striking and I always look at with initial test results is the gap between the general population and high-needs group," Superintendent Doug Dias told the committee. "The goal is to make sure achievement is high but the numbers are indistinguishable between groups.

"I'm very impressed with the results from last year that show that they are, in fact, very close and virtually indistinguishable from one another."

According to the Department of Education's website, all Williamstown's pupils easily passed the target of 75 on the state's "Cumulative Progress and Performance Index," hitting a score of 88 on the 100-point scale.

But what is just as significant is the fact that the subcategory of students classified by the commonwealth as "high needs" hit a score of 86 on the same PPI scale.

And the bottom line: After several years of enjoying Level 2 status on DESE's scale, Williamstown this year achieved Level 1 classification.

"Each year, you know that's been a goal," Principal Joelle Brookner told the committee. "A number of initiatives you've supported have led us to this, so we're really pleased about it.


"We're one of the few schools in the state that received a commendation for high achievement and high progress."

Brookner told the committee that when the state released the data and issued the commendation, she called an impromptu faculty and staff meeting to share the news.

"I really attribute this to the efforts of the the staff — and I mean all the staff — who help support student learning," Brookner said. "And I'm so proud of our third through sixth graders. It's fair to say we were nervous about making the jump [from MCAS to PARCC], and the test was challenging. There were parts about it we didn't like, but we were held harmless."

Last year, the commonwealth announced it would not penalize districts for poor performance in the first year of transitioning to the new standardized test.

"When the preliminary results came in late in the summer, I was profoundly struck by how well children did across the board at every level," Brookner said.

Dias echoed her sentiments that the commendation is a testament to the work of everyone in the building, from the students to the principal.

"Test results don't define a child, and they shouldn't define a school, but for us, it validates the effort," Dias said.

School Committee Chairman Dan Caplinger offered his congratulations, and committee member Joe Johnson, himself a teacher in another district, said he was pleased that WES had been able to achieve Level 1 status without changing its culture to "teach to the test."

"I did say at one point that if getting out of Level 2 costs too much of what we do, let's stay Level 2," Johnson said, before citing a popular internet meme and T-shirt. "There's a saying, 'Always be yourself. Unless you can be Batman, then always be Batman.' Now, I guess we're Batman."


Tags: MCAS,   PARCC,   standardized testing,   WES,   

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Mount Greylock School Committee Votes Slight Increase to Proposed Assessments

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee on Thursday voted unanimously to slightly increase the assessment to the district's member towns from the figures in the draft budget presented by the administration.
 
The School Committee opted to lower the use of Mount Greylock's reserve account by $70,000 and, instead, increase by that amount the share of the fiscal year 2025 operating budget shared proportionally by Lanesborough and Williamstown taxpayers.
 
The budget prepared by the administration and presented to the School Committee at its annual public hearing on Thursday included $665,000 from the district's Excess and Deficiency account, the equivalent of a municipal free cash balance, an accrual of lower-than-anticipated expenses and higher-than-anticipated revenue in any given year.
 
That represented a 90 percent jump from the $350,000 allocated from E&D for fiscal year 2024, which ends on June 30. And, coupled with more robust use of the district's tuition revenue account (7 percent more in FY25) and School Choice revenue (3 percent more), the draw down on E&D is seen as a stopgap measure to mitigate a spike in FY25 expenses and an unsustainable budgeting strategy long term, administrators say.
 
The budget passed by the School Committee on Thursday continues to rely more heavily on reserves than in years past, but to a lesser extent than originally proposed.
 
Specifically, the budget the panel approved includes a total assessment to Williamstown of $13,775,336 (including capital and operating costs) and a total assessment to Lanesborough of $6,425,373.
 
As a percentage increase from the FY24 assessments, that translates to a 3.90 percent increase to Williamstown and a 3.38 percent increase to Lanesborough.
 
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