ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
With it officially being the middle of the school year, teachers throughout USD 480 are putting together data on their students’ progress so far.
Monday evening, the USD 480 school board got to hear that data from District Intervention Coordinator Jennifer Hyde.
“The first thing we need to talk about is our DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) test, and that is the test we give to our students in kindergarten through 5th grade,” Hyde said. “That’s one of the reading tests we give, and it’s a one-on-one test between the teacher and student, and we’re getting feedback from those students. After testing, the students are then placed well below benchmark, below benchmark, at benchmark, or above benchmark. With the students who test well below benchmark, they have a greater than 20 percent chance of not achieving at or above the 20th percentile, and those are the students who get the intensive Tier 3 support and get an extra 30 minutes of intense reading help every day added onto their core instruction. With the students who test below benchmark, they have a greater than 20 percent chance of not achieving at or above the 40th percentile, and those are the students who get Tier 2 intervention and get 30 minutes of extra reading intervention every day. For the students who test at benchmark, they have a less than than 20 percent change of not achieving at or above the 40th percentile, and the students who end up testing above benchmark have a less than than 10 percent change of not achieving at or above the 40th percentile, and those are the students who go through the standard curriculum with no extra support needed.”
Hyde then gave some numbers regarding beginning of year and middle of year performance levels for the elementary school students, starting with kindergarten.
“With the kindergarteners, we started with 68 percent of those students testing well below benchmark, and that number is now at 48 percent, so that decrease is good to see. That’s where we anticipate seeing the most changes since kindergarteners are pretty much like sponges when it comes to learning,” Hyde said. “With the students who tested below benchmark, we started with 19 percent of students and increased to 22 percent, and with the students who tested either at benchmark or above benchmark, we have 17 percent more kindergarteners at those levels, which is a good sign.”
Hyde then talked about the remaining grades.
“With the first graders, we did see an increase from 56 to 59 percent in the students who tested well below benchmark, and with the second graders, we saw a decrease from 55 percent to 52 percent at that level,” Hyde said. “The third grade number remained steady at 43 percent, while the fourth grade increased from 37 percent to 43 percent and the fifth grade increased from 49 percent to 50 percent. But, I would encourage you to look at the number of students who tested either at benchmark or above benchmark because we’re either maintaining those numbers or increasing them, which is the trend we want to see. Especially with the fourth grade, because there were 12 percent more fourth graders who tested above benchmark. And what that tells us, if we’re seeing either a maintaining or increase in those numbers, our core instruction in the classroom is working for those students.”
Hyde added there are multiple other factors for the numbers turning out the way they did.
“I know some of the numbers might look a bit scary at first glance, but I will tell you, we are seeing gains at all levels, which means we’re seeing students go from testing either well below benchmark or below benchmark to testing at benchmark or above benchmark,” Hyde said. “And with our CAP data, that helps teachers know which students need that extra intervention and that extra push.”
Hyde then shared some numbers for the elementary schools’ iReady math performance, where students test out either above grade level, at grade level, one grade level below, two grade levels below, or three or more grade levels below.
“We give this assessment three times a year, and this past fall, we had 24 students test above grade level, 82 students test at grade level, 1,034 students test one grade level below, 554 students test two grade levels below, and 247 students who tested three or more grade levels below,” Hyde said. “We tested again recently, and we ended up having 92 students test above grade level, 204 students test at grade level, 1,161 students test one grade level below, 341 students test two grade levels below, and 143 students who tested three or more grade levels below, so we saw gains at all levels, which, again, is what we want to see.”
Hyde then shared reading and math numbers from the district’s Fastbridge testing, which replaced MAP testing.
“This is different from DIBELS because DIBELS focuses more on the foundational skills, and MAP focused on the endgame skills and what everything looked like,” Hyde said. “The Fastbridge aREADING tests those foundational skills on the computer, so the students get to do it on their own, and it’s a timed test, so it’s also testing them on automaticity, decoding, synonyms/antonyms, vocabulary, prefixes/suffixes, etc. When we look districtwide, which is grades 2 through 12, we had 48 percent of students who tested for having those foundational skills at the beginning of the year, and now, that is at 50 percent, so we did see a bit of gain there. The second graders went from 23 percent to 24 percent to testing at benchmark or above, and the third graders went from 34 to 24 percent to testing at benchmark or above. The fourth graders went from 36 percent to 20 percent to testing at benchmark or above, and the fifth graders went from 22 percent to 19 percent to testing at benchmark or above. This was also the first school year doing this particular test, so I think some of that has to do with the unfamiliarity, but I think those numbers will improve as we continue working with that platform. I think it’s also good for teachers to share this information with them in a way they understand because not only do they now know where they are, it helps them set some goals in terms of improvement, which is also a life skill they need to have anyway or else we wouldn’t see ANY growth.”
Numbers for the secondary schools were then discussed from Fastbridge aREADING.
“With the sixth graders, we had 32 percent of students who tested for having those skills at the beginning of the year, and now, that is at 29 percent, so there was a decrease there. With the seventh graders, we had 27 percent of students who tested for having those skills at the beginning of the year, and now, that is at 50 percent,” Hyde said. “With the eighth graders, we had 21 percent of students who tested for having those skills at the beginning of the year, and now, that is at 20 percent. With the freshmen, we had 29 percent of students who tested for having those skills at the beginning of the year, and now, that is at 30 percent, and with the sophomores, we had 29 percent of students who tested for having those skills at the beginning of the year, and now, that is at 27 percent. With the juniors, we had 28 percent of students who tested for having those skills at the beginning of the year, and now, that is at 25 percent, and then With the seniors, we had 26 percent of students who tested for having those skills at the beginning of the year, and now, that is at 17 percent. Originally, the state said ALL high school students have to take the reading screener, but then it was amended so only certain students had to do that. We didn’t have anything that really measured at the high school level except CAP, which was done once a year, so we opted to continue this because we didn’t really have anything to measure or go off of. With those numbers for the senior class, a lot of that is because we didn’t have the same number of students tested, and it’s very, very difficult to test students at the high school, and that process needs to be refined. In the fall, we tested 278 out of 290 seniors, and this time around, we only tested 248.”
Hyde then concluded her presentation by sharing Fastbridge aMATH numbers for the secondary schools.
“With the sixth graders, we had 36 percent of students who tested for having those skills at the beginning of the year, and now, that is at 34 percent, and with the seventh graders, we had 26 percent of students who tested for having those skills at the beginning of the year, and now, that is at 23 percent. Then, with the eighth graders, we had 21 percent of students who tested for having those skills at the beginning of the year, and now, that is at 19 percent,” Hyde said. “With the freshmen, we had 21 percent of students who tested for having those skills at the beginning of the year, and now, that is at 24 percent, and with the sophomores, we had 16 percent of students who tested for having those skills at the beginning of the year, and now, that is at 24 percent. With the juniors, we had 16 percent of students who tested for having those skills at the beginning of the year, and now, that is at 12 percent, and then With the seniors, we had 8 percent of students who tested for having those skills at the beginning of the year, and now, that is at 6 percent. And with the high school students, again, a lot of that has to do with the number of students who are actually tested – not every student takes a math class every semester, so there’s also a lot of discussion about who needs to take what. Another question to consider is what this data will actually be used for so we can actually properly track everyone who might need that extra intervention. I think we’re heading in the right direction, and I’m glad we’re seeing the gains we are.”
