Local schools recognized by University of Arkansas for test score growth
Four schools in Union County have been recognized by the Office for Education Policy at the University of Arkansas for their student growth on the ACT Aspire Mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA) exams.
Strong High School received an Outstanding Educational Performance (OEP) award for ELA scores, Smackover High School and Barton Jr. High School received an OEP award for math scores, and Junction City High School received an OEP award for both test scores along with overall growth.
The data for the OEP awards came from the Arkansas Department of Education’s release of information about the school that came out in October. Overall growth is based on how students were expected to score verses their actual score.
“This is a departure from prior awards, which were based on student proficiency,” the release said. “We choose to focus on student growth for these OEP awards because we think it is a better reflection than proficiency rates of how the school is impacting students.”
The OEP put out a list of the top five schools for each region looking at ELA scores, math scores and overall growth for elementary, middle and high schools.
Sherry Hill, principal of Barton Jr. High, said she’s proud of the school and its staff for being recognized. The school was rated second for the southwest region of Arkansas for middle schools. The school’s overall score for math was 80.60 with 640 students being tested. It is the only middle school from Union County to be recognized.
“The Arkansas State Math standards are very rigorous, the ACT Aspire is very challenging, and our students and staff worked extremely hard to achieve that growth,” Hill said “So, this recognition is a nice pat on the back for students and staff. We are constantly working to improve and hope to see continued growth on future exams.”
Smackover High School placed fifth in the southwest for math scores. The school scored 81.40 with 151 students being tested.
“Congratulations to SHS math students, math teachers Yeager, Childers, Spooner, Blair, schoolwide staff, School Board, parents, and community,” SHS principal Jan Henderson said. “Smackover High School is one of five schools in Southwest region of Arkansas where ‘Students demonstrated high growth on the ACT Aspire.’ It takes all of us working together to achieve growth, so we thank each of you in the district and in the community for supporting our students.”
Strong High School placed fourth in the southwest for ELA scores. The school scored 82.45 with 63 students being tested.
“The Strong-Huttig School District administration is proud of Strong High School for receiving this award,” Jeff Alphin, superintendent, said. “We appreciate the hard work of the students and their teachers as well as Becky Bolding and Shirley Kyle, school improvement specialists and Barbara Goldsby, literacy specialist.”
Junction City High School placed fifth in the Southwest for ELA scores, third for math scores and third for overall growth. In overall growth, JCHS was also recognized
by the Arkansas School Recognition Program which comes from the ADE and results in the school being awarded with $12,395 in additional state funding. The school scored 82.30 with 194 students being tested.
Meanwhile, individually the school scored 82.45 for ELA scores with 194 students being tested and 82.10 for math scores with 194 students being tested.
School administration could not be reached for comment by press time.
“We are pleased to be able to highlight how students are growing academically in schools across the state, and hope the information will spark discussion among stakeholders about how to ensure all schools are growing the knowledge of Arkansas students,” the release said.