Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Overall, School District 55 appears to have made improvements in the number of students meeting state benchmarks this school year, according to Curriculum Director Jan Sharp.
Sharp presented preliminary figures to the School Board during its regular meeting Monday night. The figures show what percentage of students meet state benchmarks.
She described the numbers as soft. The district has challenged some of the scores reported by the state and a second batch of high school scores is not available yet.
Writing scores, which are not included in the preliminary report, are just coming in, and do not look good, she said.
The test results include the third through eighth grades and 10th grade in reading and math and the fifth, eighth and 10th grades in science.
Testing groups refer to a specific grade, school and subject, such as third-grade math at Foster, which, for example had 81 percent of its students meet benchmarks compared to the state, which had had 78 percent of students meet benchmarks.
Last year, barely under half of testing groups were below the state average for the number of students meeting the state’s benchmarks. This year, according to early figures, has dropped to about one-quarter of the testing groups.
A little more than half of the testing groups are above the state average by nine percent or less, and 22 percent of the groups exceed state averages by more than 10 percent.
Overall, “that’s the shift we wanted to see,” Sharp said. “Overall, we seemed to gain.”
The preliminary figures include science scores this year, Sharp said. Those figures were not included in the report last year. In science, Crawfordsville’s fifth grade, the junior high’s eighth grade and the high school’s eighth grade were above state averages, with the 10th grade exceeding state averages by more than 10 percent.
Overall in the district, the district scored above the state’s average in reading and in third- and fourth-grade math while finishing 1 to 9 percent below the state average in fourth-, fifth- and 10th-grade math. Seventh and eighth grade finished ahead of the state by 10 percent or more.
Sweet Home Junior High and Oak Heights finished ahead of the state in every test, while Foster fell short of the state average only in fifth-grade science. Crawfordsville fell short only in fifth-grade math by more than 10 percent and third-grade math by less than 10 percent.
Also finishing more than 10 points below the state were Hawthorne and Holley’s fifth and sixth grades in math and Sweet Home Charter School in fifth-grade reading and math.
Sharp expected firmer numbers to be available in late July, with school report cards released in early August.
Present at the School Board meeting were Ken Roberts, Chanz Keeney, Leena Neuschwander, David VanDerlip, John Fassler, Jason Redick and Diane Gerson. Chairman Mike Reynolds and Jeff Lynn were absent.
In other business, the board:
– Approved an increase of 25 cents to all school meals. Elementary lunches increase to $1.75. Junior high lunches increase to $2. High school lunches increase to $2.25. Adult lunches increase to $3.25.
Reduced lunches increase from 40 cents to 50 cents, and milk increases from 30 cents to 40 cents.
A trip through the grocery store shows why the district needs to raise lunch prices, Supt. Larry Horton told the board. The increase will help defray the rising cost of food.
The budget includes $45,000 to help support the school meal programs. The fee increase was not included in the budget and would help offset that budget item depending on what happens to food prices and how large the federal food reimbursement is.
– Accepted the retirements of Oak Heights Elementary teacher Debbie Aman and Hawthorne Principal Mike Aman.