Director of education comments on recent PSSA tests
With the Pennsylvania System of Schools Assessment tests on the minds of many local educators, the Uniontown Area School Board Monday heard comments from Debbie Rittenhouse, director of education for the district. Rittenhouse said that teachers in the district fully comply with current education standards and are working hard to align each individual lesson with the standards set by the PSSA tests. Rittenhouse said that with the implementation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the district has an even more difficult road ahead, but she thinks that PSSA results recently received by the district reflect the hard work already begun by the district staff.
“Overall, scores were good,” she said. “We had one school that I’m so proud of, Marclay Elementary School, that scored advanced.”
Rittenhouse said that overall, the district scored higher in reading than math and she said that no schools failed to meet state standards.
In April, the U.S. Department of Education, in conjunction with the states’ education departments, announced that 8,600 schools nationwide did not meet academic standards for two consecutive years and that school choice must be offered under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.
In Pennsylvania, inclusion on the list is based primarily on students’ performance on the PSSA tests. Schools that fail to move 5 percent of their students into the top two performance levels of the test for two consecutive years are included on the list.
Locally, Albert Gallatin Area School District’s Masontown Elementary School and Friendship Hill Elementary School were included on the list.
Rittenhouse told the board that the district has taken various measures to help continue to meet the state’s rising educational standards and to keep schools from the improvement list. She said that she is working with teachers on instructional strategies and that she is currently organizing a team of teachers whose students did exceptionally well on the PSSA’s to help instruct other teachers in the district, and to implement certain test taking strategies.
“This is a tough law,” she said. “The educational bar has been raised very high and we have our work cut out for us.”
Board member Charles Castor thanked Rittenhouse for her dedication and commended her on the efforts she has made throughout the district to align schools’ curriculum to the state standards.
In a related matter, Student Representative Matt Dowling announced that students in the district will begin taking PSSA prep classes the last Thursday of every month.
The board also conducted the following business:
– Announced that the district is in the process of purchasing the current Career Link building at 32 Iowa St. at a cost of $302,000 from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania with the location proposed as the future site of the new central administration building.
– Approved the continuation of construction management services by Fairchance Construction for the upcoming construction projects at Menallen and Marclay Schools, contingent upon the solicitor’s review of the agreement.
– Hired Annie Malkowiak as a special education instructor for A.J.McMullen School, effective immediately.