Triad administrators are planning to implement new strategies after last year’s state test scores were lower than expected.
The Triad Board of Education held a work session Monday to discuss the 2022-23 test scores and plans to improve them during the upcoming year.
The discussion focused largely on middle and high school results, as Elementary School Principal Lee Claypool could not attend due to an illness.
Middle school state test scores fell in fifth grade English-language arts (ELA), math and science, sixth grade ELA and eighth grade ELA, math and science, according to data shared during the meeting. They were up in sixth grade math and seventh grade ELA and math.
At the high school, test scores were lower than the previous year in ELA II, geometry, government and biology, while they increased in algebra I and American history.
“We’re not happy with our results,” said Middle School Principal Vinnie Spirko.
High School Principal Todd Schneider said he feels the district has the information needed to improve test scores, but they need to start pivoting earlier based on what they know.
“We need to quit working so hard for our data and make our data work for us,” Schneider said.
For example, he said he looked into information gathered from prognostic tests students take throughout the year to show their growth in certain subject areas. A mid-year test indicated that high schoolers were struggling with reading informational texts.
When Schneider broke down the state test scores for ELA II, he said he saw that students did not do particularly well with questions that required them to read informational texts.
“Our data matched up almost perfectly with where our kids were falling on state tests,” he explained.
Spirko agreed that, while his teachers have the data, it can be difficult for them to use it to implement teaching that targets areas in which students are lagging.
“As a middle school, end to end, we struggle with: what do we do next?” he said.
Chief Academic Officer Jenna Fograscher said she plans to retrain middle and high school teachers in a five-step process, with extra emphasis on what to do with data.
She explained the process as: identifying the critical need, choosing an evidence-based strategy, creating a plan for implementation, implementing and monitoring it and examining, reflecting and adjusting.
Fograscher said focusing on the third step – creating a plan for implementation – will help ensure that teachers are making changes or instructing according to what the data indicates.
In order to be successful, Fograscher said teachers need to group students based on their prognostic test results, then determine what each group needs in order to meet standards.
Spirko said it becomes a matter of balancing education between enriching students who are more gifted in certain areas, while still meeting the needs of students who may struggle.
“It’s not easy,” he said. “Not at all.”
However, Schneider said teachers are finding ways to do so, referencing his building’s scores last year.
He said he researched why scores in two subjects – algebra and American history – increased and found that both teachers created intervention groups.
Schneider explained that Mr. Jason Malone, who teaches high school social studies, identified 22 students who received additional, special instruction during their advisory period. Of those students, 11 passed the state American history test.
The principal said Malone has presented to larger groups of teachers about how he implemented his intervention instruction so they can do so as well.
In response to a question from Board member Mike McConnell, Schneider said similar intervention groups will “absolutely” be required of high school teachers during the upcoming year.
Along with a lack of interventions leading up to state testing, Fograscher identified several reasons she believe factored into drops in scores.
Board member Kyle Huffman, who was previously the high school principal at Triad and is now a principal at Madison-Plains, highlighted the level of teacher turnover in tested areas.
“I think a lot of the public schools of the state are on a roller coaster of staffing,” Huffman said.
Superintendent Vickie Hoffman-Maruniak agreed, adding that it can be particularly difficult for rural school districts to compete with others that generally offer higher wages.
Fograscher said higher ratings in the previous school year could have also led to a level of “complacency” which resulted in lower attendance at professional development opportunities for teachers.
She said she is also working in the upcoming year to encourage teachers to lead and incentivizing others to attend professional development sessions.
McConnell said board members will support any initiatives that help teachers reevaluate what their students need throughout the year and pivot based on that information. He said, as soon as areas of need are identified, he would like to see them addressed.
“All this data is great, but it’s just a book if we’re not going to take action,” he said.
Board President Chris Millice agreed.
He suggested another meeting in November to evaluate the strategies that each building principal and administrator has planned for the upcoming year. At that time, Millice said he would like to “look for hot spots we need to target.”
“I want to hear what’s working and what needs a timeout,” he said.
Following the November meeting, the principals said February may be a good time to follow up, as January mid-year testing will show whether areas of need have been addressed.