Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
Sweet Home Junior High and High School showed overall improvement in their students? performance on the 2004-05 statewide assessment tests in reading, writing, math and science, according to results released last week by the state Department of Education.
The scores represent the percentage of children in each school and district who met or exceeded the state standards set for each grade.
Sweet Home students were among nearly 1 million throughout Oregon who were among those taking the state?s computer-based testing last spring. Technology Enhanced Student Assessment (TESA) uses Web-based tests to measure students? achievement. State officials say it has ?many? benefits over conventional paper-and-pencil tests.
Third-, fifth-, eighth- and 10th-graders took the math, reading and science tests. Fourth- and seventh-graders took writing (essay) tests.
Among Sweet Home schools, Sweet Home Junior High stood out with significantly improved scores in every area. The percentage of students who met or exceeded standards at the junior high were 15 to 20 percent higher this year than last.
The biggest gain was the 85.4 percent of eighth-graders who met or exceeded standards in reading, compared to 64 percent who did so in 2003-04.
?It was a good year for us, I think,? said junior high Principal Hal Huschka.. ?The teachers up here are really focused on state content standards. They?re looking hard to find different ways to present materials. They?re working hard to hold kids accountable.?
Huschka said that his math teachers, in particular, go the second mile to make sure students are where they need to be.
?Our math teachers will give up their lunch to bring kids in and make sure they understand it,? he said.
The high school also saw improved numbers, though not as dramatic as those at the junior high. More tenth-graders met the standards this year than did last year in every subject category.
District-wide, elementary schools as a whole had slightly less students meet the standards, but where the numbers were lower, the differences were generally by a few less percentage points than last year. The district grade schools? average percentage of students meeting standards was higher than the state average in both reading and math at both third- and fifth-grade levels.
Holley and Oak Heights schools had the most improved numbers over last year. Oak Heights exceeded the state average percentages on every test this year.
?We don?t have a huge school population, so we?re going to have fluctuations,? said Jan Sharpe, district director of curriculum and staff development and principal of Holley School. ?You have differences from year to year. It?s just different groups of kids.?
Huschka gave credit to the elementary schools for the performance of his junior high students.
?The elementary schools are doing a fabulous job and that?s reflected in the scores that, year in and year out, show how well they do. This year we had a good group of kids (in the eighth grade) and I think we have another good group coming. We?re just continuing what?s going on in the elementary schools.?
Sharpe said she?s happy that three out of the five elementary schools exceeded the state average for both math and reading.
?We?re an economically disadvantaged district,? she said. ?I think we scored pretty well.?
The challenge now is to keep things moving forward, Sharpe said.
?In the upper grades, we just have to figure out a way to sustain that momentum,? she said. ?The other place we were low last year, which we still need to work on, is writing. We want to keep math and science up there and pull writing up there as well.?