On Monday, March 14, Gist started her day visiting Curtis Corner Middle School and Matunuck Elementary school, finally stopping by SKHS in the afternoon to first visit with teachers, a se-lect group of students, as well as South Kingstown School Department principals and administrators. The commissioner finally ended her night holding a community forum in the SKHS auditorium.
According to Gist, the 2010-2011 listen-ing and learning tour is to provide commu-nities with the state of their local schools and seek feedback on the new RI Depart-ment of Education’s plans to improve edu-cation, particularly after Rhode Island won $75 million for Race to the Top.
Gist began her presentation focusing on how South Kingstown compares to the state as a whole. She presented a slide about how South Kingstown was doing and how far the district has come.
According to Gist, South Kingstown has fewer children that qualify for reduced or free lunch, relatively the state average.
Gist then addressed three points she be-lieves vital to improving education in the state: chronic absenteeism, graduation and dropout rates.
Gist then moved to three points: chronic absenteeism, graduation rates and dropout rates.
“If you look at chronic absenteeism, you see that SK is lower than the state aver-age,” Gist stated. Chronic absenteeism is defined as the student missing more than 10 percent of the school year, or about 18 days.
For 2009-10, the chronic absenteeism in SKHS is 15 percent, with Rhode Island just above at 16 percent. The attendance rate for SHKS is 93 percent, while statewide it is little lower at 91 percent. Gist also told the audience the graduation rate for SKHS was about 86 percent, which is higher than the state average of 70 percent.
According to the Rhode Island Depart-ment of Education, “13,163 freshmen who entered Rhode Island high schools in the fall of 2004, 9,731 graduated in four years; 2,046 students dropped out; 423 completed a GED; and 963 remained in school an extra year.” This translates to about 70 percent of students graduating from the class of 2008.
At South Kingstown High School, the dropout rate is at six percent.
Nonetheless, Gist expressed concern.
“All of us would like to find out why six percent of our students are dropping out? What is it we can do?”
NECAP Scores
Next, Gist moved to student achievement and showed a slide that South Kingstown is performing at or higher than the state average in reading, science and math.Esposito said he would like to see NE-CAPs taken in the winter, as opposed to the current time in the fall of the junior year. The NECAPs were set to be taken in October based on the content of learning from years before.
When students take the NECAP assess-ment in the fall of their junior year, Gist told the audience, it‟s based on the 10th grade standards.
According to Gist, there are numerous things teachers do to help prepare fall jun-iors to take the NECAPs successfully.
Teachers review and get students back into the swing of school, Gist said. She also added the NECAP is given in October so teachers have that September and part of October to review, and then move on to new content after the NECAPs have been taken.
However, the state is moving to a new assessment in the 2014-2015 school years, according to Gist. The new test will be an assessment that is similar to the current NECAP but will be a course-based assess-ment.
When we look at the current NECAP math test, said Gist, it‟s a general math test. Many people would feel better if we had an assessment on algebra when stu-dents take algebra.
This means that after students have com-pleted coursework in Algebra I, for exam-ple, then a student will take this new test, and another one after completing Geome-try.
We‟re trying to make it more consistent with the way students experience school and the way school is taught, Gist said.
Gist also stated she is confident that stu-dents who are ready and able to graduate from high school will not be prevented due to a poor NECAP score.
We‟ve put in a number of different safe-guards so that doesn‟t happen, Gist af-firmed.
At the same time, that should be a really small portion of students who use those safe-guards. For the vast majority, that state assessment will be a reflection of their readiness. In order to graduate, you must be partially proficient on 10th grade standards.
Gist believes that students who are par-tially proficient on the NECAPs will be ready for a number of different options after high school, whether it is working, community college or joining the military.
If students want to go to a traditional four-year university, they‟re probably go-ing to have to do better, Gist stated. We‟re confident that‟s the right bar in place.
URI professor and parent Karen McCurdy added to the point made by Es-posito, and state that Gist‟s test score goals and graduation goals were apparently dif-ferent.
I think the message I get as a teacher and parent is that grades don‟t matter, the types of courses you are taking doesn‟t matter, McCurdy said. I‟m also concerned about [Gist‟s] statement that a one-time test will be an accurate measure if a child is profi-cient at a tenth-grade level.
McCurdy stated that if a student took the test two more times some would pass even though they should not, and some will fail, even if they should have passed.
Each component of the graduation re-quirements is equally important, said Gist. Taking and passing your courses, performance based assessment the achiev-ing partial proficiency on the NECAP is how you graduate.
There‟s not one that is more important than the other, Gist responded.
The uncanny resemblance, Gist said, is science scores are at the exact state average, or about 43 percent proficiency. However, math across the state is some-thing we‟ve been concerned about, she said. Gist also pointed out South Kings-town is doing better compared to the state of Rhode Island in mathematics, whereas the state average is at 33 percent proficien-cy.
In South Kingstown it‟s a great example of how our students can do when we work on that, Gist stated.
Moving on, Gist set two goals for NE-CAP test scores, one from South Kings-town‟s performance in 2009 and a new goal for 2015.
The big outlier is mathematic perfor-mance at the high school level, which is a pretty dramatic jump, Gist said. We thought it‟s one of those instances where you say we‟ve really got to jump high. However, she added that South Kingstown has to make sure it‟s going in the right direction.
Gist ended her presentation and moved on to a question and answer discussion, the first one asked by RI Senator V. Susan Sosnowski. Sosnowski inquired about the money that South Kingstown will receive from state funding.
Gist stated that the funding formula is not a static number, because it could change every year due to enrollment, the commu-nity‟s ability to invest in the schools and the percentage of free or reduced lunches.
In the current formula, South Kingstown would receive $375,000 less aid each year the funding formula is implemented.
Future NECAP tests
I would like to see more helpful infor-mation and specific suggestions on what to expect, Esposito added And maybe some tips on taking the NECAPs.
The sophomore explained he has heard concerns from his classmates talking about the NECAP tests next year.
I don‟t believe it‟s good for students to take NECAPs in the fall, Esposito said.
Gist changed topics to allow other speak-ers to raise questions. SKHS senior Joe Esposito took issue with the way students are prepared for NECAPS.
Almost 36,000 people die each year from the flu. Many mothers lose children, kids lose grandparents, and families lose friends.
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Recently 144 public employees of the South Kingstown School District, ranging from teachers to janitorial staff received pink slips, otherwise known as layoff notices. This year has seen an increase with an additional 44 employees receiving pink slips.
Butler is not to be trusted in this Final Four. It pretends to be a guppy but has a piranha’s appetite. Underdog? Please. Butler is the favorite now, and a lot of us know it. Whatever you do, don’t pet it.
