Many families received test scores in late September and parents likely saw improvement in their child’s test scores as well as their schools.

Students in both the Tahoma and Kent school districts showed improvement but officials in both districts also continue to focus on areas which could be strengthened.

Ups and Downs in Kent

Children in grade schools as well as high school sophomores in the Kent School District, which also serves students in Covington, made major strides, according to Linda Del Giudice, chief accountability officer .

Students in third, fourth, sixth and 10th grades all improved scores on the Measurement of Student Progress and High School Proficiency Exam given in the spring, Del Giudice wrote in an email interview.

“Overall, the percent of students who scored proficient in reading increased in grades three, four, six and 10 with grade six increasing by 6.7 percent proficient and grade 10 increasing by 6.3 percent,” Del Giudice wrote. “Other highlights include fifth grade math scores increasing by 6.2 percent proficient and sixth grade math scores increasing by 7.1 percent. Science scores improved in every grade, with the highest increase in grade five, which increased by an additional 21.7 percent of the students scoring proficient.”

An example of the success in science testing is at Covington Elementary, where nearly 72 percent of students in fifth grade last year met or exceeded standard, a huge jump from the previous school year when less than 15 percent of students were proficient.

Covington fifth and sixth grade students also made significant gains in reading and math, including double digit percentage improvements from the year before in math among both groups, according to data on the Washington state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction website.

Kent students also did well on the new math end of course assessments, Del Giudice wrote, with 69.7 percent of the students met standard on EOC 1 compared to 64.3 percent statewide while in the EOC 2, 71.3 percent scored proficient which “puts Kent very close to the state average” of 73.5 percent.

District officials will be working on reading and math among seventh and eighth graders, Del Giudice wrote, as those “are areas we will watch.”

“They showed small decreases ranging from 1.1 to 4.3 percent fewer proficient students,” she wrote. “We are continuing to watch the achievement of special populations, such as English Learners, and special education students, who consistently score lower than the mainstream student in every school district because of their special needs.”

Additional support will be provided to students through the district’s Tiered Intervention programs at each building.

“In Tiered Intervention, students in need are given instruction in small groups based on areas where they need extra instruction until they catch up with the rest of their class,” Del Giudice wrote.

There are other areas aside from the state’s standardized testing which Kent officials can point to that show the district making strides in other areas.

“We are also seeing more students take part in rigorous course work required for college admission and high tech careers,” Del Giudice wrote. “When you average our SAT scores from across the district, the KSD scores were higher than the average and Washington state scored higher than any other state in the country. So, our attention to greater rigor and focus on increasing student academic achievement is showing significant results.”

TAHOMA

Test results for Tahoma students, said Dawn Wakeley, the district’s associate director of teaching and learning, demonstrate a level of consistency and high achievement.

“At every single level in all of the content areas, the message is Tahoma continues to do really well,” Wakeley said. “Our teachers and our kids are really working hard at learning. Tahoma is, on average, in the top 10 percent of districts in our state and that’s because of the hard work of our kids and our teachers and our parents.”

Youngsters in Tahoma are in the top 20 in every content area in every grade level but two grade levels where they are 27th and 34th.

Most students in the district are meeting standard, Wakeley noted, but not all.

“When you get up to that level… drastic changes in data is hard,” she said. “Our staff is really dedicated to working hard to provide that for every single kid. It’s student by student and skill by skill that our teachers are thinking about in terms of instruction and learning.”

An area the district is focused on, Wakeley said, is math.

“We have a new math program at elementary level and last year we put in a new math curriculum at second grade, so, we’ve invested a lot in trying to support our students learning math.”

Wakeley said that while Tahoma students did well on the end of course assessments, there is still room for growth.

She explained high school students starting with the class of 2013, thanks to a new state law, have to pass a course specific test in algebra and geometry as well as earn three math credits beyond those two courses.

In either algebra or geometry, Wakeley noted, 78 percent of Tahoma students met standard, “but that leaves 22 percent are going to have to retake it in January.”

“Having to meet standard on both exams, that will be a challenging for kids and families across the state,” Wakeley said. “We’re doing everything we can to make sure they have a chance for success.

We want our students to benefit from all the learning that all the districts are doing connected to this.”

The district has a number of intervention programs in place to help students who struggle to meet standard, Wakeley stated, ranging from silent sustained reading during Go Time at the middle school level to intercessions during mid-winter or spring break at Tahoma High.

During the summer there has been a program that offers online instruction with weekly meetings of students and teachers to go over material which has led to improvement in student achievement.

“Getting that last little group (to meet standard) is challenging,” Wakeley said. “We do have interventions in place. That extra time and support is key. We can get them there and we can keep them there as long as we can give that extra little boost.”