Farmington High Students Set Records On AP Exams

FARMINGTON — Farmington High School set numerous records based on the test scores of students who took Advanced Placement exams in spring 2016.

“Our numbers are greatly improved,” Principal Jon Purifoy told Farmington School Board members last week. “We’ve worked extremely hard as a staff to do that.”

Purifoy, Assistant Superintendent Stephanie Pinkerton and Clayton Williams, assistant principal at the high school, updated board members on the results of tests given to students in the spring.

Williams gave a Power Point presentation that showed Farmington High School achieved its highest pass percentage for students taking AP exams. A 3, 4 or 5 is considered a passing grade on an AP exam. An AP course is considered a college level course and students can earn college credit by passing an AP exam, depending on a college’s requirements for credit.

Farmington High gave 279 tests and had a 44.9 percentage pass rate. This compared to 26.3 percent in 2012, 29.9 percent in 2014 and 35.1 percent in 2015.

The school’s goal was a 38 p e rcent pa s s - ing rate and the students “knocked the socks off it,” Williams said.

Other accomplishments for AP tests were that the school had its highest scores for Calculus AB, Calculus BC, chemistry, physics, psychology and statistics. For Calculus AB, 70 percent of the students passed the exam. For Calculus BC, 90 percent of the students passed the AP exam.

The school distributed $14,175 to students this year who passed their exams. This is the most reward money given out, Williams said.

Williams said he especially was proud that the school had the lowest percentage ever for students scoring a 1 on an AP exam. Only 19 percent of students scored a 1 on an exam. In 2015, 34.5 percent of students scored a 1 on an exam.

The lower percentage shows that the AP program is not just helping a small group of students excel on their exams but is moving along an “entire group of students,” Williams said.

In other test results, Williams said 2016 seniors scored an average of 22.1 on the ACT college readiness assessment, compared to a statewide average of 20.2. They earned the highest composite score in Farmington history, he said. Students in 11th grade are now required to take the ACT as their state assessment test and for Farmington, 179 students took the test for an average composite score of 20.3, compared to 18.8 statewide.

Pinkerton told board members the administra- tion was pleased with scores from the ACT Aspire tests, given to students in 3rd-10th grades.

The Office of Education Policy at the University of Arkansas calculated a gradepoint average for all public school districts based on test scores. Farmington ranked sixth in the state with a 2.55 GPA, behind three charter schools, Bentonville and Fayetteville school districts. Prairie Grove was not far behind at 9th place with a 2.48 GPA. Lincoln’s GPA was 2.33.

“We thought that was a great performance for our district,” Pinkerton said.

She reviewed test scores for each grade, comparing them to school districts in Northwest Arkansas. Farmington was in the top half for almost all categories and in many cases was in the top five for the region.

In reading fourth grade, for example, Farmington students ranked first in the region, with 60.3 percent of the students scoring high enough to meet the readiness benchmark. Farmington sixth graders also ranked first in the region on the science test, with 75.4 percent of students meeting the readiness benchmark.

Bryan Law, superintendent of schools, noted that schools in Arkansas have taken three different state tests the past three years so comparative data is not available yet.

In 2014, Arkansas students took the Arkansas Benchmark Exam. Last year, the state changed to the PARCC test or Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. The state decided not to go with PARCC again and has signed a five-year contract to use the ACT Aspire assessments.

For now, schools can get an idea of how their students did by comparing scores to other school districts in the region and state, Law said.

“I’m proud of these test scores,” Law said. “There’s certainly room for improvement. Those areas have been identified and we’re working on those today.”

Pinkerton said she thought the district had some great scores to celebrate.

“A lot of work was done to prepare for this,” she added.

Pinkerton

Purifoy

Williams