Area districts see bump in state scores, 10 hit 90% or more

Area school districts, including Poplar Bluff R-1 and Twin Rivers R-X, have learned how their students performed on the state’s annual testing program with either increased scores or holding very close to the previous year’s score.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) announced statewide results Friday morning for both the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) and district Annual Performance Reports (APR) for the 2017-18 school year.

The Poplar Bluff R-1 School District held steady with an 85.6 percent for 2018, very close to their 86.4 percent in 2017.

“We were pleased to see that our overall APR score held very close to last year’s score,” Poplar Bluff Assistant Superintendent Patty Robertson said in an email at 9 a.m. Friday. “We made tremendous gains in our subgroup achievement category, which demonstrates that our efforts to provide intervention for students is really paying off for them.”

R-1 saw increased scores in the college and career readiness category as well.

According to Robertson, those numbers mainly come from the advanced coursework and assessments given at Poplar Bluff High School and the Technical Career Center.

Students scored well above the state average in Government, as well as ahead of a new test which will be administered this spring.

Due to changes in learning standards, new types of assessments in English language arts and math were administered in Missouri’s 2017-18 tests.

According to DESE, the new standards were developed with a goal of setting higher expectations for students, which was reflected in a more challenging, teacher-developed set of state assessments.

Poplar Bluff student scores came in lower in ELA and math followed by the more rigorous test, said Robertson.

“Since we really can’t compare our scores to previous years, we compared ourselves to the state average,” she said in wake of the new tests. “In both ELA and math, our scores are comparable to the state average. We have high spots and low spots across the board.”

A field test was also given during the 2017-18 school year for science, so schools did not receive official MAP scores, nor was science reflected in calculations for the 2017-18 APR scores.

The district has had a difficult time comparing scores to previous years, because of the constant state of change with standards and assessments, Robertson added.

“This past spring, we experienced the fourth new test in five years,” she said.

DESE has promised stability moving forward, she added.

“I am extremely proud of our teachers for pushing through the uncertainty and putting their focus on helping students master the skills and strategies they need to be successful for years to come,” Robertson said.

The Twin Rivers R-X School District saw nearly a 10 percent APR score increase from 83.9 percent in 2017 to 92.7 percent in 2018.

“I am very pleased with our APR and would like to commend the entire school community,” Twin Rivers Superintendent Jeremy Siebert said. “The students, parents, staff, administration, counselors and especially the teachers are the ones that helped us reach this goal.”

According to Siebert, the district’s score has increased almost 20 percent in five years.

“Our goal was to eventually get to over 90 percent and we reached that goal this year,” he said.

Even with not being able to compare scores in ELA and math, Siebert said the district is always evaluating data to find ways to improve.

“We have a new test prep program called EVALUATE that we believe will help raise our scores in the future and we will continue to look for new ways to improve,” he said.

Science scores not being counted did not come as a surprise to Siebert.

“(DESE is) always changing and using different evaluative tools, so we try not to worry about those things,” he said.

Siebert credits the overall APR score increase for the district in part to the Fisk campus showing steady improvement the last few years and the Qulin and Broseley campuses remaining steady in performance.

“We hope that our new EVALUATE test prep program and continued hard work will continue to improve our test scores and APR score each year,” he said.

Other area schools also received APR scores including Neelyville and Campbell, who both scored a 100 percent.

Clearwater in Piedmont saw a 12 percent increase in its score of 78.6 percent in 2017 to 90 percent in 2018.

East Carter also saw a significant increase from 78.9 percent to 97.9 percent for 2018.

Other APR scores for 2018 include: Greenville, 83.3 percent; Van Buren, 93.3 percent; Naylor, 88.7 percent; Doniphan, 91.3 percent; Dexter, 95.3 percent; Puxico, 88.9 percent; and Malden, 91.8 percent.