Assessment Data Goes Public

While district student’s take most required assessments in the spring, results don’t make it back till after the summer vacation ends and school starts in session.  This year is no exception.  Recently, the ACT results for the district wide application of the spring ACT became public with Garfield County students scoring a combined composite of 19.6 close behind the state average of 20.2.  In the last five years, 19.6 is right in the middle of our low of 18.7 in 2014 and our high of 20.4 in 2015.

ACT started in 1959 as a college readiness assessment.  Later it was expanded to define college and career readiness standards.  Several Utah districts are using the ACT as a baseline to show student growth and a comparative analysis of students, schools, and district performance.  Students can take the ACT on their own multiple times per year but the district and state only require the ACT to be taken as a school wide group in the spring of student’s 11^th grade year.

Our spring summative exam, the SAGE, is administered to all students from 3^rd through 12^th grades.  The number of exams a student takes each year may vary, but usually a student takes a Math, Science, and Language Arts exam.  This year’s results show that the district as a whole performed great in math as compared to the state 55.6 to 46.5, Language Arts 43.6 to 44.1, and Science 42.1 to 48.7.  Individual schools compared one with another; student and teacher results also varied.

In Career and Technical Education, 9^th through 12^th grade students are required to take a Skills Test for each course in the CTE schedule.  Skills test scores provide immediate feedback on competency skill attainment.  These competencies are based on both curriculum and industry standards.

Welcome Back to School!

Tracy Davis, Superintendent