Strong-Huttig School District looks to improve reading comprehension, math scores
Editor’s note: This is the third installment in a six-part series looking at Union County schools and the grades each received from the state. The first part looked at how the state calculates each grade. Each installment after that covers a different school district in Union County.
Administration at the Strong-Huttig District is looking into options to improve students’ reading comprehension and math scores.
In the grades released from the Arkansas Department of Education in October, Gardner-Strong Elementary received an F grade and Strong High School received a D grade.
Officials with the administration did not respond to questions as of presstime Monday.
Arkansas released the grades for the 201718 school year in the beginning of October both to the general public and
to the schools. The grades and breakdown are available at myschoolinfo. arkansas.gov. In Union County, no school received an A grade.
The Strong-Huttig School District has a number of school improvement plans available on its website. These address plans to improve reading comprehension for students and teaching methods for math.
When it comes to improving student reading comprehension, the plan states to “use a full range or teaching and assessment strategies.”
The plan lays out informal and formal data collection methods daily to modify instruction or study approaches. It also addresses weekly data collection “to help students see their effort is paying off” with the plan, using interim results to help keep skills falling through the cracks.
“Students’ reading levels are generally below grade level and this impedes their learning in content areas,” administration wrote in the report. “By using a variety of techniques, (we) will be able to meet the needs of all students efficiently. We will grow together and demonstrate that growth by improved test performance, higher goals, and increased selfconfidence of student.”
At Garner-Strong Elementary school, 14 out of the 86 students were reading at grade level. At Strong High School, 12 out of the 66 students were reading at grade level. The scores are based on students scoring Ready or Exceeds on the ACT Aspire.
The improvement plan addresses teachers using the book "Assessment That Works," focusing professional development on teaching strategies and revamping lesson plans. For students, they’ll use charts to record progress and performance in each class.
Kindergarten through second grade teachers will get training in the RISE program over the course of the 2018-19 school year while third through sixth grade teachers will get training in the RISE program during the summer of 2019.
At the high school, seventh through 12th grade teachers will be exposed to the RISE prograin through the Arkansas IDEA portal during the 2018-19 school year.
The Reading Initiative for Student Excellence (RISE) program is put out by the Arkansas Department of Education and is focused on encouraging a culture of reading with a campaign to get parents, teachers and community partners to establish the importance of reading in homes, schools and communities.
When it comes to math classes, the school website has a three-year plan to make improvements to the math curriculum. The plan starts out with a list of talking points:
• Implementing problem-solving in math instruction
• Number talks to increase number sense, mental math strategies, and fact fluency.
• Curriculum alignment to ensure there are no teaching gaps
• Commitment to the plan: teacher buy-in, presence/participation, district professional development days
• Continue to implement common planning for teachers during the school day.
Goals for the first year, the 2018-19 school year, include identifying and defining Essential
Standards for each grade level and course through high school geometry, analyzing the current curriculum resources against Arkansas Math Standards, finding places where number talks and problem-solving supports the curriculum resources, and implementing formative assessment purposefully.
Goals for the second year include developing mathematical ideas toolkit, looking into the Arithmetic to Algebra program, participating in Math Quest personal
development during summer 2019, and writing assessments based on each grade level’s essential standards.
The goals for the third year will be based on work completed in the first two years.