Elementary school principal Dean Lew didn't want to bore the school board at its meeting from Monday February 21.

"I didn't want to bore you with the numbers," Lew told the school board of the bi-annual AGR Review as he came to present on elementary test scores at Stanley-Boyd. AGR stands for “Achievement Gap Reduction” and measures how well the district is addressing learning gaps. Provided for in Chapter 118.44(4), achievement gap reduction is measured with a 'baseline' score taken from the end of the year assessments from last year, the baseline is then compared with Fall Semester progress towards the objective, along with Spring Semester when available. So how are indicators for this year looking after Fall semester?

Not bad, Lew told the board. “Right now we are making growth,” the S-B elementary principal said. “Our kids are working hard. Our teachers are also working hard.” Calling up the presentation materials as potential supporting evidence after the fact, the following can be shown for the kindergarten to third grade performance at Stanley-Boyd.

Starting in Kindergarten, those students entering in the fall showed a baseline performance of one percent of stan- dards in PALS reading, with one of 83 students meeting the baseline level.

At the same time, the baseline saw 12 percent of incoming kindergartners or 10 of 83 scoring 90 or higher on letters/ sounds for the ESGI, while zero out of 83 incoming kindergartners scored 21 or higher on dictated sentences, in which the teacher states a sentence AGR REVIEW

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and the student is expected to write it down.

Fast forward to the end of the fall semester, and the one percent scoring 20 or higher on PALS reading at the beginning of the year had increased to 40 percent or 31 out of 77 students, with another 12 students just one away from meeting the benchmark.

For ESGI reading, the end of fall semester saw 33 percent or 26 out of 78 students score 90 or higher on letters and sounds in ESGI. For dictated sentences, meanwhile, the end of fall semester saw 32 percent of kindergartners at Stanley-Boyd score 21 or higher on dictated sentences, a rise of 32 percent from the start of the year.

In math, meanwhile, the kindergarten scores show a jump from five percent at the beginning of the year to 59 percent of students scoring 3 or 4 on the counting cardinality” measure, while operations and Algebraic Thinking saw 16 percent score 3 or 4 at the end of fall semester, after not having this assessed at the beginning of the year.

Finally for Numbers and Operations Base in Stanley-Boyd kindergartners, the numbers show that 58 percent scored a 3 or 4 at the end of fall semester, after not being assessed on the category at the beginning of the year.

Moving up to first grade, the baseline read – ing scores for Stanley-Boyd first graders are zero percent scoring a 40 or more on the PALS assessment, 13 percent scoring 80 or higher on ESGI, and zero percent scoring 34 or higher on dictated sentences.

Following up with the end of fall semester, first grade reading scores showed forty percent of students or 23 of 57 scoring 40 or higher on the PALS assessment, 79 percent scoring 80 out higher on ESGI, and 74 percent scoring 34 or higher on dictated sentences.

Shifting from reading into math, the scores for Stanley-Boyd first graders at the beginning of the year show that just two percent or one out of 61 students scored a 3 or 4 on the goals to reach by the end of first grade in the category of 'Operations and Algebraic Thinking' along with 'Numbers and Operation Base.' At the same time, eighteen percent scored a 3 or 4 on the measurement and data aspect of the end of year goals benchmark.

Fast forward to the end of fall semester, and those numbers had shifted to sixty percent of students or 34 out of 57 met the benchmark in the end of year goals for Operations and Alge- braic Thinking, while 63 percent or 36 of 57 first graders scored a 3 or 4 in Numbers and Operations Base goals to reach. For Measurement and Data, meanwhile, 26 of 57 students or 46 percent had met the relevant benchmark.

The differences in student numbers is ex- plained by fluctuation over the semester, while a second spring assessment will remeasure where things stand at the end of the year.

As to second grade reading scores, just sev- en percent or five of 74 students scored a 46 or higher on the PALS assessment at the start of the year, while 78 percent or 58 out of 74 students scored an 80 or higher on ESGI at the start of the year. At the same time, 59 percent of students scored a 45 or higher on dictated sentences at the beginning of the year.

Come fall semester testing, those reading scores for second grade read out with 29 percent of students scoring a 46 or higher on PALS, a full 100 percent scoring 80 or more on ESGI (73 of 73 students) and 80 percent scoring a 45 or higher on dictated sentences, while 48 percent scored 95 percent or better on the Unit 5 & 6 Wonders sight words.

Sight words are words that students are ex- pected to recognize 'on sight,' with exceptions to the spelling rules included in sight words.

As to second grade math scores, the start of the year showed that 27 percent or 20 out of 74 students met the benchmark for end of year assessment in Operations and Algebraic thinking.

At the same time, 12 percent of Stanley-Boyd second graders or nine of 74 met the Numbers and Operations Base benchmark for the end of the year.

As to Measurement and Data, zero students met the end of year benchmark.

Come the fall semester test check-in, those numbers have increased to 60 (a 33 percent rise) for the Operations and Algebraic Thinking benchmark, to 52 percent (40 percent up) for the Numbers and Operation Base benchmark, and 25 percent (from zero percent) for the Measurement and Data benchmark.

Closing out the grade review with third grade, fall semester reading scores sa69 percnet of students score 978 or above on the Exact Path Assessment, a rise of 35 percnet from baseline, with reading showing 75 percent of students scoring a 1029 or above for fall, aan increase of 36 percent over the start of the year.

For the Easy CBM portion of the reading scores fall assessments showed 54 percetn t of students scoring 16 or above, a 33 percent increase from baseline at the start of the year.

For third grade math, some 53 percent of students or 34 of 64 total scored a 964 or above on the Exact Path Assessment as pertaining to math, up from 16 percent at the start of the year.

For Operations and Algebraic Thinking, the fall numbers show 55 percent of students met benchmark for the end of year assessment, up from zero percent at the start of the year.

For Numbers and Operations, as introducing Fractions, the number of students was lower with just six percent or four of 62 students meeting end of year benchmarks, up from zero percent at the start of the year.

Finally for Measurement and Data, some eight percent or five of 62 third graders met benchmarks for the end of year assessment as of fall semester, up from zero percent at the start of the year.