Administrators present Pleasant Valley proficiency scores

The Future Ready Index was a mixed bag of results for the Pleasant Valley School District.

At the school board meeting last week, principals and assistant principals presented the findings to the directors. The findings are based on the test results from achievement tests, such as the Pennsylvania System School Assessment, and focus on the percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced on the tests.

The test results are from the 2018-19 school year. These results were then compared to the results from the prior year to establish growth in the subjects of English language arts, math and science.

On the plus side, Pleasant Valley Elementary School blew past the state’s 2030 goal for math. That placed PVES as the top elementary school in Monroe, Carbon and Luzerne counties, and a rank of 10 out of 39 public and charter schools in Lehigh County and 4 out of 37 in Northampton County.

There weren’t any science scores for the elementary school, but there were ELA scores. The students met the state requirements, but growth was down.

As far as ELA, Assistant Principal Sabrina Albright said some encouraging news came out of the report. According to the state’s early indicators of success, the third grade scored a 63.9 percent on reading proficiency.

“This does indicate how students will do in the future,” she said.

At Pleasant Valley Intermediate School, the students’ test scores exceeded the state’s 2030 goal in science. Unfortunately, the scores slipped when it came to continuing that growth.

PVIS met the interim targets for ELA and exceeded the 2030 goal for continued growth.

When compared to other schools, Principal Todd Breiner and Assistant Principal Kendal Askins said they had some trouble with creating a comparison with other fourth- through sixth-grade schools.

“There were only seven,” Breiner said. “Anything that had more grades within it is what we used for this slide.”

The result showed that PVIS ranked middle to above average in all five counties. In Monroe County, it came in fourth of 17 in ELA, sixth in math, and fifth in science. In Carbon County with 10 schools, it came in fourth in ELA, and third in math and science, but it broke the mold in science compared to schools in Northampton County. Out of 45 schools, it came in ninth. That’s within the top 25 percent.

“I think the numbers are not that bad,” Askins said at the end of her presentation.

The high school can also tout some success, especially in ELA. The students met the state requirements and showed impressive growth from one year to the next. So much so that they were given the top score of 100 points. As a result, when compared to the schools in the five surrounding counties, PVHS topped the list in Carbon and Luzerne counties and came in second in Monroe County.

The high school slipped in science. The state average for students scoring proficient or advanced is 66 percent. At PVHS, it was 62.4 percent.

“We are close to meeting that target,” said Assistant Principal David Sodl.

On average, the high school ranked in the middle in math and science in comparison to the other schools, and in the middle in for ELA in Lehigh and Northampton counties.

The middle school had the lowest scores. ELA scores met interim expectations and expected growth, but math and science didn’t keep up. The number of students reaching proficient or advanced was below the state average and the expected growth to reach the 2030 goals was below as well.

President of the School Board Donna Yozwiak asked middle school Assistant Principal Josephine Fields what the school is doing to improve the math scores. The principal was not at the meeting.

Fields said they are using some different strategies, such as working in stations in the classrooms and a math coach for the teachers. As far as the other subjects, they plan to rewrite the science curriculum and use co-teaching for some subjects.

On average, PVMS ranked in the middle when compared with other schools. Like the intermediate school, Fields said they had to include all schools that have seventh and eighth grades in all the various configurations.

Sometimes PVMS was on the upper side of middle and sometimes on the lower side of middle. For science, it did rank last in Carbon County and fifth of six in Monroe County.

The results are available on the Future Ready PA Index website at www.futurereadypa.org. The school comparisons were created by the staff at each school, but is viewable on the Times News Facebook page under videos.