The holiday break is over, and that means testing will soon be in full bloom for Monongalia County Schools.
Writing assessments for students in grades 3-8 will be from March 4-15 across the district, with SAT School Day Test for high school juniors commencing April 10.
After that comes the spring round of the West Virginia General Summative Assessment (WVGSA) for all county students in elementary and middle school.
The WVGSA provides a snapshot of English and Math readiness for the above students.
All of Mon’s elementary schools, plus South Middle, will take the test April 29-May 3.
Clay-Battelle elementary and middle students, along with Mountaineer and Suncrest middle schools will undergo their assessment May 6-10.
Westwood Middle’s students will test May 15-17.
The assessments come as the district is still working its way out from the under the shadows of the pandemic of four years ago, when schools here and elsewhere had to pivot to all-remote learning as the coronavirus loomed.
After that, quarantines and closures of classrooms and whole schools were commonplace, as students, teachers and staffers continued to test positive in the face of the contagion.
Meanwhile, Mon’s district is generally faring better than most of its neighbors across the Mountain State.
Courtney Crawford, in fact, gave public schools here an A-effort as she discussed the West Virginia State Balanced Scorecard with county Board of Education members this past September.
The scorecard is the state Department of Education’s breakdown of the academic fortunes of schools across West Virginia’s 55 counties.
Test scores in reading, English and math from the 2022-23 school year were presented to the BOE by Crawford, who directs assessment services for Mon’s district.
While there was still work to do, she said then, she happily reported that local students were continuing that tradition of generally turning in what are among the highest schools in the state for the West Virginia assessment.
“We’ve shown progress in every area,” Crawford told board members.
A total of 62.9% of Mon’s students achieved proficiency in English and language arts, she said, opposed to the then-statewide average of 55% statewide in those same subjects.
In math, she reported the local county outpaced the rest of the state, with 61.4% of students earning the same. Just 51% of students in every other district made into the proficiency column in the scorecard.
A total of 98% of Mon’s students made it through 2022 without being suspended due to disciplinary reasons, Crawford said.
Mon Schools also boasted a four-year graduation rate of 94.7% that year.
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