CHERRY TWP — The Moniteau School Board Monday night received news of the most recent state-mandated assessments — PSSA and Keystones — and the Pennsylvania School Performance Profile (SPP) scores.

Moniteau High School achieved an SPP score of 69.7 for 2016-17. The score was 77.8 for 2015-16. The high school SPP had been increasing each year for the past three years.

Dassa McKinney Elementary School achieved an SPP score of 63.1 for 2016-17. The score was 65.8 in 2015-16.

The SPP is an overview of student academic performance. It is based on state test results and other factors that signal student achievement. It helps schools align and focus resources for continuous improvement.

Dustin Thompson, principal of Dassa McKinney Elementary School, said the performance profile also gives an academic score for teachers, provides information used in federal accountability status for Dassa McKinney Elementary School and other Title 1 schools, and is a way to share academic performance information with the community.

Thompson reported results of nine tests for grades three to six.

“Although most of our achievement scores remain above the state average, the academic growth of our individual learners is not where we'd like it to be. The idea of improving our students' academic growth is important to us and will need to be accomplished through systemic changes in how we approach all aspects of student learning,” Thompson said.

“All of our efforts in curriculum, instruction and assessment need to be data driven and focus on the needs of individual learners,” he said.

Lance Fox, Moniteau High School principal, said the district emphasis has been overall achievement. The district worked more with each class as a whole to help all students achieve proficiency in the tests. Now there will be more emphasis on measuring the growth of individual students from year to year, he said.

“Our achievement for the Keystones at the high school were high, especially for 11th grade,” Fox said. “For literature and biology, we were the highest in Butler County.”

“We have some good achievement scores in different pockets in the school district but we have to build a Comprehensive Plan to improve the growth scores for all students K-12,” he said.

Considering the high school SPP was lower than in 2015-16, Fox said they will evaluate what was done differently that allowed the drop.

He also said in high school, where students can take individual Keystone exams more than once, the teachers will encourage students to wait and take each exam when they have sufficiently completed algebra, biology and literature as classes.

Remediation will continue for high school students who were not proficient in the Keystone exams, he said.

Fox said changes that the schools make in the coming year will prepare students for when the state includes a new type of scoring for 2017-18 exams.

“As a staff at the high school, we have helped students improve the scores in the past and we can do that again,” Fox said.

According to Superintendent Sean Arney, when the state changed the structure of the tests to align with state standards, the tests became more complicated for the students.

“Essentially we have a lot to celebrate when it comes to student achievement, but our work is to look at individual student growth,” Arney said.

He said the district will revise its comprehensive plan to include updates to the curriculum, instruction and assessments. The process will help the district align current instruction to the state assessment.

He said, “When you look at the success there's a lot for us to celebrate outside the test scores, for example the number of kids participating in extracurricular activities and the number of kids going to college. You cannot look at only the scores of tests mandated by the state.”

Speaking from his experience in other school districts, Arney said it will take time to change the system to move in the right direction.

“It could take two to three years to put the systems in place,” he said.

“We have phenomenal teachers and administrators and a supportive school board. It will take time to have everyone work together to address the individual needs of the kids and help the district to move forward,” Arney said.

For more information about state testing and grade level scores, visit www.paschoolperformance.org andhttps://pvaas.sas.com.