Connellsville schools see improvement
CONNELLSVILLE – Students, teachers and principals were commended this week by the Connellsville Area School Board and district superintendent for the upswing in state testing results. “It is nothing short of phenomenal,” said superintendent Dr. David Goodin of the 2010 results. “There have been significant improvements.”
While the district overall is listed in the improvement one category and several buildings continue to struggle in order to meet the stringent standards, federal programs and curriculum director Dr. Tammy Stern said that improvement was made in the 2010 test scores.
“We met 172 of the 180 targets,” said Stern. “That’s a 96-percent rating.”
The state Department of Education requires districts annually to take part in the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) to determine Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) based on criteria established by the federal No Child Left Behind Law.
For a school to meet AYP, students must meet goals in the areas of testing participation, attendance, graduation and testing results.
In order to meet the standards, 95 percent of the district students were required to take part in the test and the district must show a minimum of 85 percent of its seniors are receiving a diploma or improvement in the figures over the previous year.
Within the participation and performance targets, sub-groups – such as those students enrolled in an Individualized Education Program (IEP), economically disadvantaged or are among a specific cultural group – must also meet the same proficiency levels.
District buildings that achieved performance targets included Bullskin Township, Connellsville Township, Clifford N. Pritts, Dunbar Borough, South Side and Springfield Township elementary schools and Connellsville Area High School.
The senior high school was listed in Corrective Action II in 2007 through last year, but is making progress according to testing results, Stern said.
A school must make improvements two consecutive years to exit the category.
Springfield elementary was listed in the Warning category in 2007 and dropped to the School Improvement I level last year. The 2009/2010 results indicate progress was made in the last round of testing.
Stern said that Dunbar Township Elementary School met 16 or the 17 performance targets for a 94 percent ranking. However, the IEP subgroup did not meet the reading performance standards and only 31.3 percent of the special needs students scored proficient in the PSSA reading test.
The scores resulted in the school dropping from School Improvement II to Corrective Action I.
Zachariah Connell Elementary School had similar scores and dropped from making progress in School Improvement I to School Improvement II.
The district’s two junior high schools also saw less than required score standards for their respective IEP subgroups in math and reading.
Junior High East dropped from School Improvement II to Corrective Action I and Junior High West dropped from Corrective Action I to Corrective Action II.
While the Connellsville Area Career and Technical Center achieved performance targets, the IEP subgroup did not meet proficiency scores in math or reading.
To help improve the scores of the IEP subgroups, the district hired Keystone Educational Consulting Group at a cost of $32,000 that will be paid through federal stimulus funding received by the district.
Director Dr. P.J. Carte, chairman of the special education committee, said while the overall 96 percent ranking did not translate into the district making AYP, there was progress made over the past year.
“If it was 96 percent on a report card, it would be an A,” he said.