District looks to reduce test score gaps

The Teacher Leadership and Compensation (TLC) Board reported Monday to the Creston Community School Board on the district’s 2023 Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress (ISASP) results.

The ISASP is a summative assessment of math, English/language arts and science. The test is taken by students in grades three through 11, except for the science exam which is taken by grades five, eight and 10.

Throughout all the grades in each subject, a discrepancy was noted between percentages for the district essential standards and district ISASP scores.

“If you look, we had 100% reach proficiency in our essential standards around biology. Well, those same set of kids only scored 57% proficient on the ISASP,” TLC board member Joni Gillam said. The state average for ISASP was 62%.

School board member Sharon Snodgrass also brought up the gap between the state and district averages for third grade.

“Third grade is a pivotal year,” Snodgrass said. “We always used to say that, if we did as well as the other kids in the state of Iowa, we were achieving well because Iowa used to be a good crowd of people out there. I don’t know if we can say that still.”

For the third grade English/language arts test, the state average had 66% of students proficient, while the district had 57% proficient. The gap was larger in math, the state average being 76% and district being 61%.

“We’re really just digging deeper into our instructional practices and our assessments to make sure that there is an alignment, because that’s a pretty big discrepancy,” Gillam said. “We know that our kids can do better and we’re trying to figure out what we can do to help them do better on those standardized tests.”

Middle school principal Lesa Downing said her staff has been working on training with depth of knowledge.

“We used to use that depth of knowledge chart and we’d look at the verb and circle it and that’s where we ended, and we figured out we were doing it wrong,” Downing said. “Now that we know better, we can do better, and so we are looking at the verb a lot more in depth. We’re just taking that a step further.”

The chart referred to is Webb’s Depth of Knowledge Chart. This chart contains four levels. Level one focuses on the verb recall, level two on skill/concept, level three on strategic thinking and level four on extended thinking. Each level also contains a variety of other words that further that line of knowledge.

Downing explained they started working with a new chart last Friday, which incorporates Webb’s chart with another one. Called Hess’ Cognitive Rigor Matrix, this chart focuses on full ideas rather than single verbs.

“It tells us what the student should be doing instead of saying, here’s the verb and what I think it should be doing, it tells you very descriptive of what they should do in class. That’s great,” Downing said. “Instruction wise, our core instruction has to match that depth of knowledge. Our classroom should be noisy places of activity where students are doing it hands on, not a sit and get.”

Downing hopes that following these plans will help increase future ISASP scores.

In other school board news...

Enrollment numbers are down compared to last year, with 29 students less. The district expects enrollment to continue to decline over the next four years.

The Pathway to Being A Panther and supervising teacher agreements have been approved in order to encourage more student teachers to work with the Creston School District.

The school board approved the October 2023 list of contracts and resignations.

Resignations: Alma Morales, teacher.

Contracts: Cassidy Thornburg, para; Kloey Crawford, para; Scott Wagner, 9th grade girls head basketball coach; Chad Malmanger, MS assistant boys wrestling coach; Matt Buck, MS head boys wrestling coach; Jacob Baudler, 7th grade head boys basketball coach; Kayla McDonald, para.

Voluntary Transfers: Casidy Cavanaugh, cook.

Terminations: Sapphire Tyler, para; Ryan Kissel, head 9th grade girls basketball coach.