Sifting through test data and state scores can be difficult for administrators and Board members alike in the school district.
For the Columbia School District the news was mixed this year and as Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment DeeDee Randall explained the process, Board members understood the complexity of it. As a whole, the District rated a “C,” with some individual schools ranked as a “B.”
In her presentation at a recent school Board meeting, which lasted nearly an hour, Randall touched on highlights from each school’s scores.
Columbia Primary
The primary school earned a B, and it fared well in kindergarten readiness. Students take a test before school starts and then at the end of the year to measure how much they learned. Students in Columbia started slightly behind the state average and finished a good bit above it. Columbia Primary ended up 60th out of 406 schools in the state in kindergarten readiness, which is the 85th percentile.
The district also outperformed the state average on the third-grade gate. Columbia’s pass rate was 96 percent compared to 92 percent statewide.
The district’s results in third grade overall were mixed, though. It beat the state average in English/Language Arts but was below it in math.
“Our teachers have done a fabulous job of taking students below the state average and bringing them up,” Randall said. “We have seen some gains. I need to do a little explanation on this. You’ll notice on the dashboard, we have 100 percent (on the third grade gate) because we did end up with 100 percent. There are three chances for the third-grade reading gate. The scores that the state publishes is from the first round. What that does not take into account is those that qualify for good cause exemption, which includes SPED students and students who have been retained for two years. Actually, we had one child that didn’t pass on the first round and according to his parents, he had a very bad day that morning. He passed the first round of the re-test. So we had 100 percent passage on the test.”
Columbia Elementary
The elementary school dropped to a B. It was below the state average in the percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced in English/Language Arts and math in fourth grade and fifth grade, with math scores generally being lower than English.
Columbia Elementary School Principal Robert White explained the testing.
“This may be an over simplification, but you know our teachers maximize instructional time and work to teach the right stuff,” he said. “Our focus this year has been our standards and those standards that are represented heavily on the test, those are the ones we’re trying to focus our attention on with more targeted instruction, especially in fifth-grade math.”
Jefferson Middle
The middle school also made a C. It was slightly above the state average in English Language Arts for both sixth grade and seventh grade but behind in math. Eighth graders trailed in English/Language arts, math and science.
Columbia High School
The high school maintained its B and generally performed well on the four subject-area tests. It scored above the state average in U.S. History, English II and Algebra I and was just slightly below it in Biology I.
Its average ACT composite score was 18.2, which was up from 17.8 in 2016 but behind the 2017 state average of 18.6.
The graduation rate was down from 89.2 percent to 86.1 percent, but that remained above the state average of 82.3 percent.
“We need to look at this as a complete picture for the entire school district,” Superintendent Jason Harris said. “Not only does one want to create the environment for 21st century learning, but we also, because the test windows were so small, we didn’t have the devices to accommodate testing, where now, we have the time and the devices to test them within the window. The other thing is the ease of the machine. Students are taking these assessments on the computer and they are used to it, where before, sometimes, they had to adjust to the device and how to use it.”
Randall said the District had to scramble with carts of computers from school to school to ensure the testing happened within the time window last year.
“The first test we gave last year was the second day of the window and the window was a month,” she said. “We spent almost an entire month testing.”
“I know there’s been a lot of talk about our District results,” Randall said. “We have a 587, on the scale it is a ‘C,’ not too far off as on the old scale, 588 was a ‘B’ and 599 would have given us a ‘B’ on the new scale. What was adopted in 2016 is what we were told were going to be the cut scores, was not what was used in the evaluation. The grades for us would not have changed on any of the schools.”
Harris said the District had to be ready to adapt to anything the state threw at them.
“Be prepared for those (requirements) to change again,” he said. “There are so many changes that they did when they first scaled it to all of these tests and then we’ve got new tests, so things will change again.”
