first time ever taking one, plus everything else they’d gone through,” Mayhue said. “So, you see significantly how much they have really grown, across the board. They have gone from our higher percentages being in below basic and basic to now our higher percentages being in proficient, which makes me so excited.”

Mayhue indicated that the state department says that basic (or higher) is what the school is going for.

“It shows a basic knowledge of the skills, so we really want them to land in that basic to proficient range,” Mayhue said. “So, we obviously had a lot more proficient, especially as they moved from third to fifth (grades), they really did a great job.”

Mayhue spoke about math and praised her math teachers in fourth and fifth grade. She also emphasized the drastic changes in math from fourth grade to fifth grade.

“I will say that the difference between fourth-grade math and fifth-grade math is huge,” Mayhue said. “Fourth grade is more of your basic math, (while) fifth grade is moving into pre-algebra. So, there is a significant middle level math changeover at about that fifth-grade math level, very different. So, for our advanced kids to go down a little bit is not a big deal to me, because it is a tougher math. It’s just tougher.”

Mayhue said she was thrilled for the students to do as well as they did.

She also mentioned that she would like to see the kids advance even further.

“I feel like we’re moving those kids from basic to proficient a little bit better, but now I want to look at (getting the kids who are proficient up to advanced,” Mayhue said. “Because if we are going to surely show growth, then we have to grow every kid. And if we want that growth score to go up on our report card, then every kid has to grow, not just our below basic kids or our basic kids.”

Mayhue said that one of her goals this year is to get those kids to advanced.

She also had praise for the teaching in fourthgrade math.

“Again, fourth-grade math is always one of my strongest tests, I’m just going to be honest,” Mayhue said. “It’s one of my strongest ones all the time. She (the teacher) has been for the last four years we’ve been taking tests while I’ve been here. Hers have always been the strongest. So, she has more advanced kids this year than she had last year. And that fourth-grade group, that’s now my fifth-grade group, there is a core group of SPED (special education) kids, and they have significant needs. So, for her scores to still be this good, when she had that group of SPED kids that she had to work with -- she and her (paraprofessional) last year really worked one-on-one with these kids and they all showed growth as well -- so I was very pleased with that.”

Steve Butcher

Butcher stressed that because students must take ACT tests to get into college, administrators feel like the more times the students take the test, the better prepared they will be.

Butcher cautioned that the students in 9th through 12th grade took the ACT tests August 29, so the results weren’t available at that time, but he felt positive about the test-taking.

Butcher said last year, they had issues with students not fully devoting their time to the effort.

“And consequently, some of them got through in five minutes,” Butcher said. “You can make them sit down, but you can’t make them think and you can’t make them write. This year, we didn’t have anybody finish early. Everybody seemed to be engaged and giving good effort on giving the right answers.”

Butcher also reported that he had benchmarks for state tests.

“Our sixth- through eighth-grade classes did well on the whole,” Butcher said. “As you can see from the scores, the eighth graders struggled a little bit. But even with the low scores that they had, when you average them in with the rest, we still have a composite score right at 65%.”

Jeff Hiatt

Hiatt spoke to the board about a scenario that was brought up while he was speaking with a teacher.

Hiatt indicated that students who have attended Allen Schools for their whole career often fare better on tests than students who came in later on from another school program, or who may move around a lot from school district to school district.

Hiatt indicated that he looked at the statistics/ grades of students who’ve always attended Allen Schools versus kids who came to the school system later on.

“I took the eighthgrade class from last year, there was 38 kids that took that test in eighth grade,” Hiatt said. “Sixteen of them were here in kindergarten. So, that means 22 of them moved in after kindergarten. Just to give you some real quick numbers: seventh grade, 17 out of 32; sixth graders were 22 out of 42; fifth grade, a small class, 13 out of 19, that was our best; fourth grade, this one was interesting, only 12 out of 29 kids came up through our elementary. And then our third grade, 19 out of 33.”

Hiatt indicated that it is something that teachers struggle with, because sometimes there are kids who transfer to Allen Schools who are far behind on curriculum, or who can’t read.

Overall, Hiatt was happy with the improvements but indicated that he would like to see it continue.

“I wanted to brag on our test scores this year, because we definitely had an improvement,” Hiatt said, “and I want my teachers to feel appreciated, and they need to feel appreciated, I thought they did a good job. We asked them to step up last year. There wasn’t everything positive about our test scores (last year) and they take it personal. And I felt they put the work in, and I just wanted to brag on them. And that’s why I asked (the principals, Steve Butcher and Amy Mayhue) to come and show you this data. Is it where we want to be? No, but it’s an improvement, and that’s all I ever ask from our staff. Let’s grow, let’s get better.”