By GAGE WILSON
for Glasgow News 1
The Caverna Board of Education met once more this month to discuss a keen area of interest to parents, staff and hopefully students, that of the district’s test scores and overall ratings in the Kentucky Department of Education’s “School Report Card.”
Calling the meeting to order Superintendent Amanda Abell immediately gave the floor to the school’s assessment coordinator, Whitney Paul, who began her presentation speaking about the “performance indicators” that the schools were graded on. On all grade levels the indicators included standardized test scores, quality of climate and safety, and English learner progress with the high school also being grade on graduation rate and postsecondary readiness. The KDE utilizes a color system based on the collected data from each district.
Beginning with Caverna Elementary School, Paul spoke on behalf of principal Vonda Stockton, “Caverna Elementary reduced the percentage of ‘novice’ students in 4 out of the 5 tested content areas,” she began. “Leading to an overall improvement of the rating from last year.”
The presentation also revealed that CES went from a red rating to orange between the 2023 and 2024 semesters with a nearly ten point increase in its overall score.
Caverna Middle School Principal Twana Hayes was the next to address the board. “We are still orange, we’re consistent with that,” said Hayes. “We have jumped from a score of 37.6 to 47.7, we are a high orange, almost yellow.”
Toward the end of her presentation Hayes stated, “We’re on the uphill slide, we’re heading in the right direction.” This was supported by a reported 32 percent reduction in “novice” scores amongst the middle school students.
Caverna High School Principal Frank Beauchamp was the last to speak, “Our (color) indicator is red, which has come down since last year,” he began. Beauchamp assured board members that his staff will be pushing the importance of test scores to students in efforts to recover from the six-point drop in CHS’s overall score.
CHS did see a three-point increase in its graduation rate, which changed from 84.1 for the 2023 semester to 87.1 for 2024.
Each speaker touched on something consistent throughout the grade levels, that being the stress the district is putting on attendance. “Since Covid, we have very much struggled with attendance,” said Abell. “That is our top priority this year, our district attendance team is meeting once a month and they’re going to be individually looking at students.”
Abell went on to mention other possible solutions such as “parent meetings” after a child has consistently missed, as well as taking more truancies to court. To further assist with absences Abell revealed that the district has hired a family engagement coordinator, to “try and get our families more engaged in school, because the more engaged families are, the more students will feel like school is important.”
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