Aurora staff reviews NE report card

The results of the state’s AQUeSTT academic rankings stirred considerable conversation at last week’s Aurora School Board meeting, where administrators commented on both the testing process as well as the results, which posted a listing of “excellent” for the elementary school, “great” for the middle school, “good” for the high school and “great” for the 4R district overall.
Desiree Teahon, the district’s curriculum director, announced that the elementary students earned the “excellent” ranking for the 2023-24 school year based on academic achievement tests, finishing with a score of 78.26. Middle school students tested earned a score of 72, while the junior class, the only class tested at the high school, earned a score of 39.25 based solely on the ACT test, which all juniors are required to take.
“As a district, we fall into the 3 category at 69.55 percent,” Teahon explained of a system that ranks individual schools 1-4 based on student achievement tests taken throughout the year. “I will say that last year we talked about how at the middle school and elementary we were going to really look to move that dial. In May, the middle school would have been excellent (with its 72 score), but in August the state decided to change from a 72 to a 73, so we missed it by 1 percent. I’m a little bitter about that one, because they were so close.”
Teahon directed the attention of the board and a crowd of more than 30 people in attendance to a large projection screen, which listed results by elementary and middle school grade level for tests taken in the fall, winter and spring.
“So you are looking at our whole year, from fall to winter the spring scores, and you can see how we made progress throughout the year at our various grade levels,” she noted.
In the fall, for example, elementary students tested 54 percent proficient in English Language Arts, with that number improving to 59 percent in the winter and 74 percent in the spring. Middle school students tested 59 percent proficient in the fall, 67 percent in the winter and 73 percent in the spring.
Similarly, elementary proficiency scores in math went from 29 percent in the fall to 52 percent in the winter to 82 percent in the spring, while middle school proficiency went from 41 percent in the fall to 55 percent in the winter to 76 percent in the spring.
Science scores were listed differently with only fifth and eighth grade students tested. In the spring, fifth graders tested 91 percent proficient in science while eighth graders tested 84 percent proficient.
“Science is different than what the ELA and math look like,” she explained. “They are given a scenario of some kind that relates to the concepts that they’re taught in science and then they are asked questions to apply that. It is different than the multiple choice test that they used to take that covered random things.”
Asked how teachers use this data in Aurora Public Schools, Teahon said they look for trends.
“When teachers are really diving into the data and the state assessment things, we’re using different spreadsheets,” she said. “This is just a big overview, kind of a how did we do. One of the things we try to point to is to see if there is a grade that’s dropping or is there something that might be a red flag to us that we need to look at.”
Supt. Jody Phillips said reviewing test results is a priority, because “This is what we live and breathe every day.” He also pointed out that not every grade is tested, and that proficiency results may not mean what some people think they do.
“One thing in the public across this whole state that’s kind of gotten twisted a little bit, for lack of a better term, is what proficiency means,” he said, adding that some may see a score of 71 percent in English and conclude that 29 percent of the students don’t know how to read. “That’s not what that number is saying. That’s saying 71 percent of our third graders were proficient in all the English Language Arts standards for third grade. They can pull up a book a read it, comprehend it, but there are how many pages of standards that we teach to and the standards are wide and broad.”
Phillips went on to explain that the state standards are in a continuing 7-year cycle of change, which makes it a challenge for both teachers and students.
“I’ll give you a perfect example,” he said. “Right now the elementary is a 4. That’s awesome. That’s the highest that you can get. That needs to be celebrated. What’s even harder is to stay a 4, so don’t be shocked or say what’s wrong with the world if our elementary goes from a 4 down to a 3. That doesn’t mean things are going bad, it just means it’s hard to keep that based off of the new threshold established by the annual scores we get.”

High school rating
While stepping forward to comment on the high school’s score of 39.25, Principal Doug Kittle admitted that he gets a little fired up with the format used by the state Department of Education to evaluate high school academic achievement.
“The ACT test provides districts data on academic progress and college readiness,” Kittle said. “The ACT is not a predictor of post-secondary success. Do these scores surprise me when they come out? Not at all.”
Kittle reported that 50 percent of Aurora’s graduating seniors this year plan to attend a four-year college, with approximately 20 going to a two-year college and the rest going either into the military or the workforce.
“That’s reflective in that data,” he said of a test that is geared toward students headed for college.
“The other thing that irritates me about the AQUeSTT  numbers is what they don’t show. It shows us that the last three years we had a 93 percent or 97 percent graduate rate. Our goal is 100 percent. What that data doesn’t show you is that we’ve had six students that were Ascend students and they should have graduated in four years and didn’t. But guess what, they came back and they earned their diploma in their fifth year, so we were at 100 percent the last three years and this doesn’t show us that.”
Kittle also pointed out that at the time many students take the ACT they have not yet taken some of the math classes tested in the exam, and therefore are not familiar with the content.
“We’re going to have probably 40 percent of a class in any given year that hasn’t been even exposed to some of the math content and then we’re forcing them to take an assessment,” he said. “So, perspective. That’s what we really try to stress to the juniors is perspective. Give us an honest effort. Let’s see where you’re at.”
Kittle noted that students who are identified as “bubble kids” with ACT scores in the 17-21 range as sophomores will be given an opportunity to take an ACT prep with four classroom teachers.
“We will continue to provide our students opportunities to improve their ACT scores,” he concluded. “However, ACT scores are not our only focus. We want our students to be prepared to be successful for whatever road they take after they graduate from AHS.”