Sophomores and juniors have recently finished their annual state testing, with the sophomores completing the English and math tests while juniors did the science test. Each test had students completing two sections with the goal of measuring the students proficiency in these subjects. This year, the school conducted the state tests differently, having every student test in the library rather than their classroom such as in previous years.
“The mechanics of state testing are a little different this year, but what I’ve done is get the desktop computers that are already in the library, as well as grab two other laptop carts, so that the library can have just under 60 computers that I, every morning at the start of first hour, make sure are logged in and have Kite open. Then the kids can come in throughout the day, take the test, and leave,” Jimmy Beard, instructional coach, said.
In previous years during state testing, teachers would proctor students in their own classroom, rather than working together to proctor multiple classes along with the instructional coaches.
“I think that this year we did the testing in one of the more efficient ways that we could, which I think is good,” Aimee Brandt, science teacher, said. “I generally have lots of kids who have to do the state testing, so when we do things this way, it’s nice because it means that I don’t have to proctor absolutely every hour.”
Instructional coaches faced the challenges of making sure every student and each class completed the state test.
“We’ve got, like, 500 and something [students] in each grade. So I had to figure out and tell these teachers: this is when you should test, and coordinate which teachers of that content area would be proctoring to help out. Once we get through all these scheduled tests, I’ll have to look at the reports and see how many kids still need to get testing done, because some students are absent one day or the next, or they just cut class,” Beard said.
Some students worked better testing in the library.
“It feels more like a test because it’s on computers, not on your iPad. It feels a little more serious, it’s a little quieter, more study focused,” Logan Ochsner, Trade sophomore, said.
State testing is used to evaluate schools rather than students.
“It’s a summit assessment. So this is meant to, bigger picture, [affect] long term decision making, but the idea is that we as a building, use this to evaluate our progress, the state uses it to assess schools and school districts. So the English department, math department [and] science department, once they get the big picture data, can look at where they did well and where they didn’t do well,”Beard said. “[They] use that to make decisions about if they need to change part of how they teach class.”
