HWRSD piloting universal screening program at elementary level
Date: 10/29/2012
By Chris Maza
chrism@thereminder.comWILBRAHAM — While maintaining an emphasis on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District (HWRSD) is increasing its focus on more continuous yearlong assessments as opposed to on yearly test.
"Though I understand the interest of parents and our state and local interest is in the MCAS because of the high stakes, we only use MCAS as one data point in this district," Tim Connor, HWRSD director of curriculum and instruction, told
Reminder Publications.
Connor explained that the district has begun piloting a "universal screening" system to identify student achievement on a more comprehensive level in an effort to further augment student learning.
"We are looking at implementing in this district to support student achievement a universal screening tool, which means eventually every student will have benchmark testing three times a year as well as progress monitoring," he said. "What that means is we will be able to better identify at the point a child is struggling versus waiting until the end of a term or the end of a semester when report cards come out and will be able to make instructional changes or implement an intervention for that child."
The program is being piloted at Stony Hill, Green Meadows and Mile Tree elementary schools.
"We have 30 teachers in the pilot and we are in the process of developing a three-year roll-out plan for grades pre-K through eight," he said.
Connor said that the MCAS scores will still be a major component in student assessment and the new program will not take away from student preparedness for those exams. However, he said, it was the district's belief that universal screenings would have a more profound effect on student achievement.
"The MCAS scores are important and it's something that we're committed to and analyzing," he said. "But in terms of changing student outcome, it's the universal screening tool that is going to improve student success rather than one test at the end of the school year.
"Our focal point really is on these universal screenings so that during day-to-day instruction we will able to identify where a student is at that time, versus those larger spans of time when sometimes just keep rolling on until it's identified at report card time," he continued
The initiative will be implemented in pre-kindergarten programs through eighth grade and will compliment the tiered instruction model that is being introduced at Minnechaug Regional High School.
"We're also implementing the MTSS [Massachusetts Tiered System of Support] at this point, so together these two major initiatives support identifying students who are struggling, but also students who need to be challenged more," Connor said.
He explained that the tiered instruction model differentiates and incorporates student-learning interventions while attempting to keep students in regular classroom settings as much as possible.
"In this method, you're doing small pullout interventions, helping them with pointed instruction in where they are specifically struggling and getting them right back into that classroom," he said. "It's really focused, pointed instruction for that concept with which the child may be struggling or needs to advance in."
Addressing MCAS scores that were recently released, Connor said that the district pays particularly close attention to 10th grade performance, as it is the cumulative result of the students' learning career to that point.
"The success that we see at the high school level is directly attributed to all of the hard work and great work that happens in pre-K through grade 10 in this district," he said.
Among the highest achievements by Minnechaug students was their 29th highest cumulative score in the state in English Language Arts (ELA) testing.
"We're very proud that we had 100 percent of our 10th grade students earn passing grades in ELA," Connor said, adding that 89 percent of 10th grade students also scored proficient or higher in math.
Other areas of high achievement pointed out by Connor included 90 percent of eighth grade students scoring proficient or higher in ELA, 64 percent of fourth grade math students scoring proficient or advanced in math and 70 percent of fifth grade students scoring proficient or higher in the new science and technology test.
