Bayfield Elementary School students showed mixed results in their academic progress from the start of the school year to mid year, BES Principal Diane Sallinger told the school board on Jan. 12.
Students are tested at the start, middle, and end of the school year to track progress in math and reading. These are separate from the state-mandated PARCC test given in the spring.
First graders tested at 60 percent proficient in math at the start of the school year. That improved to almost 90 percent at mid-year, Sallinger reported. Proficient means working at grade level.
Fourth and fifth graders showed little growth in math from start to mid year, she added.
In reading, the whole school (K-5) of 650 kids, 64 percent scored proficient at the start, increasing to 74 percent at mid year, she said. Better reading growth had been expected in grades 2-5. There was no growth of 4th graders testing proficient in reading from start to mid year.
"We are trying to reduce by 50 percent the partly proficient and unsatisfactory by the end of the year," Sallinger said.
Kids who score unsatisfactory and are getting reading intervention do three sessions of reading per school day, she said. "We are making the reading instruction more intensive." The school has two reading intervention staffers, and those kids are showing good growth. "We're looking at a variety of things. Different things work better for different kids."
She and Superintendent Troy Zabel noted a "sweet spot" between staying too long with something that's not working, or jumping too quickly from one intervention to another without giving the first one time to work.
Sallinger said third graders are put in groups with kids who are working at the same skill level, and they are making some good progress.
The PARCC test was given for the first time last spring in grades 3-11, replacing the TCAP test in Colorado. Results were released near the end of 2015. School districts and individual schools are rated based on these results.
Zabel cited a casual conversation with a community member, that the person's child doesn't see any value in this test. "At the high school, there were kids who tried to complete it the fastest," he said.
"Some in 10 or 25 minutes," board member Carol Blatnick added.
Board member Mike Foutz commented, "Kids sniff out BS. What makes no sense, it's been nine or 10 months (between the test and the results). That's a joke."
Another concern at the Jan. 12 meeting was the switch in Colorado from the ACT to SAT test. It was announced in late 2015 by the Colorado Department of Education. That "has huge ramifications," Zabel said. "It doesn't make sense to switch. Almost all the Western colleges are ACT-focussed." The initial mandate to switch this school year got a lot of push-back from districts and has been delayed until next school year, he said.
