A few things from the Key Communicator Meeting tonight at the District Office: First, I would like to say thank you to the district for taking the time setting this up tonight. It was very imformative and interactive. How the district takes to the concerns and comments from the groups will be interesting to see. Tonight, the district invited a group of parents, students, teachers, administration and board members to sit together and go over the districts (soon to be released to the public) test scores. So the information I am giving tonight might not be completely correct as they (test scores) are not final. However, I think you will see some rather interesting information. The district setup tables each with a different set of board members, administrators, parents and teachers. Each school was represented: High School, Middle School, Lower, West and Ringing Rocks. After a group of slides each group was given time to discuss what we just saw, and point out areas of concern and/or strengths. Here is some of the information: (The report had over 40 pages, so I will not be able to cover everything) Performance Profiles: High School: 2013 - 83.1, 2014 - 86.3 (increase of 3.2) Middle School: 2013 - 83.8, 2014 - 71.3 (decrease of 12.5) Lower: 2013 - 74.6, 2014 - 77.4 (increase of 2.8) West: 2013 - 76.5, 2014 - 84.4 (increase of 7.9) Ringing Rocks: 2013 - 76.5, 2014 - 84.1 (increase of 7.6) As you can see 4 out of the 5 schools have increased in performance with only the Middle School not performing well. We were told that our District Overall ranking will be based on all schools performance, but a heavy weight is given to the High School. Plus, many other bonus factors like: how many AP classes, graduation rate, how many students taking at least one AP class in High School, students that score higher then a 3 on AP tests, amount of students taking honors or dual enrollment classes, plus others. Overall Ranking has not been released yet, but should be released some time in October. It will be interesting to see how our ranking has changed, and were we stand with the rest of the county. In speaking with that, it was highlighted that our district ranks 3rd in the county in millage rate, but 10/11th in the county in spending per student at $17,745. The reason suggested for the difference was our poor commercial base for taxing and the States poor and unfair school funding plan. Here are the test scores for each grade: I am breaking these down based on year cohort took the class. To me, the best way to look over the numbers is see how each grade did on the tests as they progressed. This was not given to us, but historical numbers were given for each grade so I am breaking this out. Below is how each grade scored thoughout their tenure at Pottsgrove. Math Scores: Percentage of Students that score Proficient or ADV 3rd Grade: 2014 - 74.5 4th Grade: 2013 - 70.3, 2014 - 72.9 (increase of 2.6 from 3rd grade) 5th Grade: 2012 - 65.7, 2013 - 74.4, 2014 - 73.4 (increase of 7.7 from 3rd grade) 6th Grade: 2011 - 71.7, 2012 - 78.8, 2013 - 66.7, 2014 - 55.9 (decrease of 25.8 from 3rd grade) 7th Grade: 2010 - 86.3, 2011 - 83.8, 2012 - 80.1, 2013 - 76.3, 2014 - 76.0 (decrease of 10.3 from 3rd grade) 8th Grade: 2010 - 85.8, 2011 - 81.5, 2012 - 83.5, 2013 - 79.7, 2014 - 74.3 (decrease of 11.5) Reading Scores: Percentage of Students that score Proficient or ADV 3rd Grade: 2014 - 80.4 4th Grade: 2013 - 73.9, 2014 - 74.6 (increase of .7 from 3rd grade) 5th Grade: 2012 - 76.8, 2013 - 69.4, 2014 - 68.5 (decrease of 8.3 from 3rd grade) 6th Grade: 2011 - 74.5, 2012 - 78.4, 2013 - 60.3, 2014 - 64.3 (decrease of 10.2 from 3rd grade) 7th Grade: 2010 - 77.9, 2011 - 79.9, 2012 - 78.8, 2013 - 71.8, 2014 - 73.5 (decrease of 4.4 from 3rd grade) 8th Grade: 2010 - 73.5, 2011 - 76.4, 2012 - 77.5, 2013 - 82.7, 2014 - 87.5 (increase of 14 from 3rd grade) Much of the changes you see and decreases were discussed as we are a very mobile community and over 23% of our students may have come from a different school that was not as advanced as ours. That many students come to our school during the 4 - 7th grade years from Philadelphia and Pottstown. These students may be pulling down our numbers. I will not give my opinion on this, but most know what I feel about excuses. The charts did show that many students inside of each segment might not have increased to proficient, but did increase in growth of a measured school year. The charts also showed that our most advanced students didnt not grow as expected from year to year. This is a major concern to some attending. Lastly, the Bonus Factors: Students in AP, Honors and/or Dual Enrollment Students in Dual Enrollment taught by a MCCC teacher: 42 or approx 6% of available student pop Students in Dual Enrollment taught by a PGHS teacher: 101 or approx 14% of available sudent pop Students taking Honors Classes: 411 or approx 41% of available student pop Students taking AP Classes: 140 or approx 19% of available student pop These numbers above some were happy with and others felt that the numbers were too low. I am on the low side as this was one of my major concerns. However, the district has introduced 5 new AP classes for this calendar year, so we should expect the number of students to increase. I will be VERY interested to see how our overall perfromace profile compares to the neighboring districts. I know that many will speak about our economic situation vs the rest of the county, but again I am not one for excuses. There are many reasons why our district is increasingly more economically challenged. Everyone knows what these reasons are. We will see if some of our elected officials can figure out ways to improve, despite our economic situation, rather then make excuses.
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 03:43:51 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015