Rockingham taking stock of test results
7/24/2008
By Jonnelle Davis
Staff Writer
Thursday, July 24
updated 8:04 am
EDEN - Collaboration among staff and replication of successful teaching strategies are the keys to ensuring that all Rockingham County students do better next year on state tests, school administrators say.
Only nine of Rockingham County's 24 schools met Adequate Yearly Progress goals this year. That's two fewer than last year.
Preliminary math results for all grades and high school reading results were released this week. This year's tests also reflected higher proficiency standards.
Terry Worrell, the district's assistant superintendent for K-12 curriculum and instruction, said that while about 38 percent of the schools met AYP goals, the fact that several schools just missed the mark spoke volumes about the level of work that teachers and students put in during the past school year.
"We know that many of our schools missed it by a few targets - one or two targets," Worrell said. "It is exciting to see the results of our students' and our teachers' and our administrators' hard work."
For most school leaders, improving results will mean analyzing student performance data to determine which students they are not reaching and devising better teaching strategies.
George Murphy, principal of Western Rockingham Middle School, said he's already got some of those strategies in mind, but he declined to speak about them before sharing them with his faculty.
Western Rockingham missed its goal by five targets, or subgroups.
"I have not received information on who those five subgroups are at present time," Murphy said Wednesday afternoon.
School officials want their more successful teachers to collaborate and share with struggling teachers. Some of the district's teachers who have experienced growth in their classrooms are spending the summer creating teaching guides to share with their counterparts.
"We're trying to replicate success," Worrell said.
Teachers also will conduct assessments of students throughout the year, and that data will be used to drive instructional plans, Worrell said.
"They will know if they need to slow down, go deeper or go faster in a specific topic," she said.
The number of target goals a school has varies based on the diversity of its population.
In Rockingham County, eight elementary schools and one middle school made their goals. Four schools missed the goal by one target group. Reading results for elementary and middle school students should be available by November. To see how each of the schools did, visit www.rock.k12.nc.us.
Contact Jonnelle Davis at 627-4881, Ext. 126,or jonnelle.davis@news-record.com
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