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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Monongalia County Schools appear to have maintained their status a.
New assesment score released by the West Virginia Department of Education, are showing Monongalia County students, are remaining above the state average in regards to core subject efficiency. This includes scores in language-arts, math and science in every grade that is tested from Grades three to eight and in the eleventh grade for Monongalia County high schoolers.
“As you can see that Mon County students were above the state average in every single level,” said Monongalia County Schools Director of Assessment, Accountability and School Counseling Courtney Crawford presenting the data to the Monongalia County Board of Education Tuesday. “And we had three grade levels that had the highest scores in the state for english-language arts, and those were fifth sixth and eleventh grades,” she said.
The assesment scores are based off of two state summative assesments that were taken in Spring 2021. This includes the West Virginia General Summative Assesment and the alternate assesment that is taken by one percent of Monongalia County students. In these assesments, according to Crawford, Monongalia County students in all grade ranges, were not only profficient in their core subjects, but in certain grade levels, were the tops in West Virginia’s entire fifty-five county school system.
“For math, we have scores that outranked in every single grade level and again we had the highest scores in the state, and those students were in grades five, six, eight, and eleven,” said Crawford further eleborating on the scores.
These numbers, are considered encouraging for the Monongalia County School system for several reasons. Not only were tests score showing to be profficient in comparison to the rest of the state, but the scores were marked after a year of no standardized test due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While Crawford acknowledged there was a drop off in math scores in comparison to test scores in 2019, but other than that subject, the scores in the rest of the tested categories were found to have little or no change as a result of remote learning in 2020.
“You can see there was very minimal change in really any of the content areas,” she said. “The more significant, a little bit more of a drop in our math scores from 2019 to 2021, but nothing that was glaringly a concern,” she said.
Standardized testing statewide, is expected to resume at it’s normal pace this year after the year long, pandemic induced break. To get students and teachers reaquainted with the statewide standardized testing program, several of the procedures taken by Monongalia County Schools in the past, are being used once again for the 2021-22 school year. For elementary and middle school students, benchmark assessments called iReady and PSAT assesments for high school students, will be among the programs in place so that the high assesments scores that are even found in the middle of a pandemic can continue.
“I am pleased to say we addressed that this year with our plan,” said Monongalia County School Deputy Superintendent Donna Talerico. “And moving forward, I think we’re going to see that benefit is tremendous,” she said.