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| Local schools ready for state assessments |
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| Education | |||
| Written by Aaron Cedeño | |||
| Wednesday, 24 February 2010 09:00 | |||
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The month of March is crawling ever close, and for area schools that means the arrival of Kansas State Assessment tests. Students from Broadmoor Elementary School, Louisburg Middle School and Louisburg High School will trade classrooms for computer labs and textbooks for keyboards, as they put a year’s worth of learning to the test. Louisburg schools have typically performed exceedingly well on the tests, which were enacted as a part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Under the act, public schools in the United States must see their students achieve an increasing standard of performance each year — dubbed Adequate Yearly Progress — until 2014, when they will be expected to achieve 100-percent proficiency in the areas of mathematics and reading. In 2009, Louisburg USD 416 achieved AYP, as did each of the schools tested within the district. Chris McLean, Broadmoor Elementary School principal, sees no reason to believe that trend won’t continue this year. “I have no doubt,” he said, when asked if he felt his students would test well. “Judging by the history of the scores and seeing every day, how much time and effort their teachers and students getting ready and learning, I have no doubt our students will do pretty well.” Each school handles preparation a little differently. Not only do they expect every day classroom learning to provide a solid educational foundation upon which to build, but they now utilize the same state software used to administer the tests to take formative assessments — essentially practice tests — at different times throughout the year. Based on the results of those formative exams, teachers at the middle and high school levels are using flex time and enrichment periods to offer additional instruction in areas where students may need it most. “After the first of the year it gets heavier,” said LMS principal Brian Biermann. “Teachers are reviewing (the formative assessments) and adjusting their work, their lessons.” Of course, it’s not just students who have a lot on their minds as the tests approach each year. The budget situation has given district staff members something else to occupy their thoughts, as many are wondering about the status of their jobs beyond May. Right now, the students may not pay much attention to the budget discussion, Biermann said, but that could change if severe cuts to district teaching staff do, in fact, take place. “We haven’t had to cut core teaching staff (in the past), and hopefully we don’t,” he said. “It’s given the teachers and me something else to worry about.” “It’s on everybody’s minds, because it could affect a lot of people,” McLean added. “But I really think our teachers have done a good job of focusing their students, and while they’re at school doing what’s right for the kids.”
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