school curriculum and student achievement
TRANSCRIPT
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8/2/2019 School Curriculum and Student Achievement
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Bertie Middle
School offers the following core courses Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, and
Science. Exploratory classes or electives include Spanish (a replacement for Music), Career
Technical Education (CTE), Band, Health, Physical Education, and Art. With these core
subjects, BMS utilizes the North Carolina Standard Course of Study.
The school also offers extra-curricular activities. Currently, there are 24 extra-curricular
offerings which include the following: Future Business Leaders of America (7 th and 8th),
Scrapbook Club, Literary Magazine Club, Phoenix Steppers, Arts and Humanities Club,
Chess Club, Yearbook Club, Art Club, Spelling Power Club, Scrabble Club, Beta Club,
Science Club (7th), Math Enthusiasts, Science Club (8th), Student Government Association,
BMS Green Thumbs, Environmentalist Club, Battle of the Books, Tennis Club, Boys to
Men, Phoenix Gents, Guidance Club, Phoenix Pearls, and Drama Club.
BMS has established daily schedules for all students from 7:30 in the morning till 3:00 in
the afternoon. Students report to their homebase/classrooms from 7:30am through 8:00am.6th grade students proceed to their core subjects from 8:00am through 11:10am and
12:40pm through 2:30pm; 7th grade students, from 8:00am through 1:05pm; and 8th grade
students, from 9:30am through 2:25pm for some classes and 2:30pm for other classes.
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Last year, the school had a total of 643
students but only 641 were required to be tested. All 641 students took the test, and 48.8%
were proficient in reading and 81.6% were proficient in math. Proficient means the student
was at or above grade level.
Below is a summary of math and reading composites for school year 2008-2009 through
2010-2011:
The table above shows that BMS has shown improvement for the past three school years in
the areas of math and science. Reading is an area that the school needs to work on. 6 th grade
reading indicates increase in student achievement through the years; however, 2010-2011
results indicate that 7th grade reading shows a 8.6% decrease from 2009-2010; and 8th grade
reading, 12.3% decrease from 2009-2010.
8th grade science shows consistent improvement from 2008-2009 to 2010-2011. In 2008-
2009, BMS had 28.9%. It went up to 58.4% with a difference of 29.5% showing a
tremendous increase of almost 50%. In 2010-2011, it shows an increase of 8.4%.
Below is the schools standing compared with the other middle schools in the northeast
region based on reading and math composites. This list includes rural high-need schools:
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The results above indicate that BMS is leading in the region for the past three years in the
area of math by a margin of 5.56% with Conway Middle School, and 35.78% with William
R. Davie Middle School, the lowest in the region.
Again, BMS needs to work more in the area of reading across grade levels. It ranks #3 in
the region with a slight difference of 3.17% with Conway Middle School, the leading
school, and 2.23% with Warren Middle School, the 2nd in the region.
The table below shows the number of goals each rural high-need school in the northeast
region has met and the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) results as well.
BMS has met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in 2008-2009. It did not meet AYP in2009-2010 because of one subgroup - students with disabilities. Last school year, it did not
meet AYP again because of the following areas: reading, black students, economically
disadvantaged, students with disabilities, and all students.
In a recent data presentation with Mrs. Hardy, she explained to the faculty that the school
met 16 out of 21 goals because of several reasons. One of the reasons was having a student
who belonged to all four subgroups (reading, black students, economically disadvantaged,
students with disabilities), and for that reason, the same student would fail another
subgroup all students. BMS is such a big school that many students belong to several
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subgroups.
Looking at the data deeper, Mrs. Hardy believed that another reason for not meeting all
goals was because some teachers did not use their data effectively in identifying those
students who needed intervention strategies or remediation. She used the end-of-gradescore of Student X as an example. Student X did not show growth (-12) at all. Earlier
during the year, one of the remediation teachers identified her as one of those who needed
intervention and told the homebase teacher about it. The latter said no and explained that
Student X did not need any remediation at all. She started to infer what kind of student
(Student X) she was and gave the reason why she was not pulled out for remediation.
Student X must have been one of the sweet, quiet, diligent students. She would do
everything the teacher would ask her to do. Mrs. Hardy explained that if only the homebase
teacher analyzed Student Xs benchmark scores deeply well, then she would have realized
that the student needed intervention.
Another reason why some students did not pass the EOG nor meet growth was failure to
use the states predictors of every student. The predictors show the students EOG scores
from third grade. When used properly, the teachers would be able to determine better who
among their students would pass the EOG, who would need extra help, or remediation
immediately.