ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
State testing has been going on throughout the U.S. and Monday, the USD 480 school board heard an update on recent testing at Liberal High School.
“We discovered, through a lot of data dives, we have students who are scoring in the high 20s on their ACT but scoring 1's and 2's on the state assessments, so we knew we needed to ramp things up and take a different approach to what we were doing because the state assessments weren't truly representing what our students are capable of,” LHS Assistant Principal Brandi Fowler said. “We came together as a group and we came up with our ACE the Test initiative, and the goal of that was to address apathy of the students, help the students become more confident in the content they'd be tested on, and establish a strong testing environment. Those were the three key aspects we felt would move the needle for us, and we also wanted to be sure we had a student version, a parent version, and a teacher version so everyone was on the same page. We especially wanted the parents to know there were things they could do to help their students succeed, and we definitely wanted the teachers to know that as well. We gave that information out before the parent-teacher conferences. We had multiple teachers and instructional coaches helping us with getting all of this together, so we really all worked together to make sure the students had everything they needed.”
“We gathered input from staff and input from students, and we came up with a plan. It was a really big undertaking for everyone, but we wanted to make a big impact on the students, so we approached this through our four core values,” LHS teacher Kimberly Buller added. “One of the big things was apathy, we knew we had an issue with a lot of students being rather ambivalent toward the state testing, so we talked to our homeroom mentors, and we hosted a few assemblies for everyone. At one of those assemblies, we talked about the purpose of the test, and we broke down what the different rankings meant – for example, a 1 or 2 means you're unable to read or write or budget or function, which we know is absolutely not true of our students. We also talked about test-taking skills and how to get through everything. We also worked to get the parents involved, because they are so essential to their children's success.”
Fowler said there was a lot of different data to go through.
“We did not only the ACT compared to the state assessment results, but we also did some interim assessments with mini-versions of the state assessment,” Fowler said. “We did a data analysis with that, and we took that information and adjusted some of the instruction so they could incorporate some of that into what they knew the students needed to improve on. I also have to emphasize how amazing our attendance was on those two test days – we had 97 percent and 96 percent attendance, respectively, on those two testing days. To get that many students at the high school there and ready to go, that was another huge undertaking, and it's something else we're super proud of.”
Buller said the recent testing was certainly an all-hands-on-deck situation.
“The testing process was all hands on deck, and everyone was on hand to help. We decided to do the testing in a separate location because we wanted to create a successful and productive testing environment,” Buller said. “If you have college students in your life, a lot of the entry-level college classes will do common tests where students can go to a common testing area and do that stuff there. The ACT is a great example of a common testing environment. When we did those assemblies with the students, we had them sit a seat apart and had guided notes for them to take so they could keep them and make sure they had the necessary information about the tests. They also had lots of homeroom discussions and initiatives on top of what we talked about with them.”
“There is a lot of praise that needs to go to our staff, because they put in so, so much effort and they were all key in helping everything go off without a hitch. Our office staff stepped up and made encouraging signs and offered encouragement to students if they happened to need to come in the office,” Fowler added. “With the content teachers, we decided to have them be the proctors for whichever subject they were in charge of – for example, the reading test was proctored by our English and language arts teachers and the math test was proctored by the math teachers, etc. We didn't want to leave our freshmen and seniors out since at the high school level, only sophomores and juniors take the state assessments, so the question became how could we drive home the importance of these assessments to our freshmen and seniors for those days? Both of those classes worked on their Individual Plan of Study (IPS), and our freshmen took many forms of the state assessment. What we plan to do with that data is use it to drive our lessons in the coming school year and make sure those students are prepared. With our seniors, we have what's called Decision Day at LHS, which is a rather new initiative, and we want the students to really know why they made the decision they did.”
Buller added praise also needs to go to the students’ parents and multiple departments at LHS.
“We also really have to recognize our parents, because the attendance on those two testing days was huge, and we have to give those parents credit for recognizing the importance of this testing,” Buller said. “We sent out multiple reminders about the testing beforehand, and we really have to give credit to the parents who took all of that seriously and got their children there. And when we said earlier how this was all hands on deck, we mean it. With our custodial staff, they moved all the tables and chairs around to our east gym and also to the Seward County Activity Center, which is where our sophomores were, and there were hundreds of those that needed moved. The cafeteria staff also stepped up big time – on a normal day, that staff hands out about 400 breakfasts at LHS, and they took 400 breakfasts to the sophomores at the Seward County Activity Center and even more for the students at the LHS East Campus, so there was breakfast going on at three spots, which was amazing. Our technology department also played a huge role, they were the ones who went over to the activity center and set up all the WiFi and all the other necessary equipment in order to make sure all of that ran smoothly so the students could actually take the tests. On top of that, there were members of that staff there who could help with any issues that came up, which was so, so handy for everyone. We also had six or seven buses we used to take all the sophomores over to the activity center, and the drivers were so friendly and encouraging to the students, so those people also deserve a lot of praise.”
Overall, Fowler said, feedback from the students was also quite positive.
“After everything was said and done, they appreciated having the partitions in place and having the proctors walking around and keeping an eye on everything. It was a great way to help them focus and take the tests, and it made a difference in some of the results of regular school tests, according to a couple teachers,” Fowler said. “The students liked being able to properly focus and the overall atmosphere. We had some high expectations for this round of testing, and everyone really exceeded them, which we were really happy about. We anticipate getting results in September or somewhere around there, there will be some delays due to everything going on, and there's always a wait of a few months anyway, so it's not too far off. We always want to give the students that immediate feedback, but it always takes some time to officially gather everything together.”
