Farmington Staff Pleased With 2018 Test Scores

FARMINGTON — Preliminary test scores for Farmington students in third through 10th grades are the highest for the district overall, according to Stephanie Pinkerton, Farmington assistant superintendent.

Pinkerton presented the preliminary scores on the 2018 ACT Aspire tests at the School Board’s July 24 meeting.

“We have a lot of celebrating to do this year,” Pinkerton said.

Assistant Superintendent Terri Strope added that the district is seeing growth from grades in their test scores from year to year.

Pinkerton gave Board members a handout that shows how Farmington’s scores compare to the 14 other school districts in Northwest Arkansas. In many cases, Farmington’s scores are in the top four, as far as the percentage of students who scored “ready” or “exceeding ready” in knowing the skills and concepts appropriate for their grade levels.

In third grade, for example, Farmington ranked first for scores on the science, reading and English/ language arts tests.

The handout shows that 60.7 percent of third-graders met the achievement level for reading, 66.1 percent met the achievement level for English/language arts and 56.3 percent met the “ready” or “exceeding ready” for science.

Farmington third-graders ranked third in the region in English (83.6 percent); second in math (72.7 percent) and third in science, technology, engineering and math or STEM (33.3 percent).

Eighth-graders also scored in the top four regionally for all tests. The eighth grade was second in English (84.7 percent); second in reading (69.4 percent); third in math (61.7 percent); fourth in English/language arts (56.6 percent); third in science (57.7 percent); and third in STEM (29.6 percent).

For most grades, Fayetteville and Bentonville school districts had the highest percentage of students scoring “ready” or “exceeding ready.”

“All in all, I think we’re very strong,” said Bryan Law, superintendent of schools. “There certainly are areas to work on.”

He pointed out that some grades are stronger academically than other grades and that is reflected by the test scores.

Several test scores were in the lower ranking regionwide. Sixth-graders were ninth in the region for English/language arts (55 percent) and 10th for STEM (13.6 percent). 10th-graders were 12th in the region for reading with 31.3 percent scoring “ready” or “exceeding ready.”

In other business, the Board approved purchasing a new chiller for Farmington Junior High for $145,000, including installation and taxes, and approved purchasing laptops for the technology department. The school will purchase 30 MacBook Air laptops for $28,000 for the high school’s biomedical program and 78 Chromebooks and a cart for $26,200.

Board members OK’d an agreement to allow Casting Christian Church to use Farmington Middle School commons area for services on Sundays. The church will pay $900 per month, which includes the use of the school’s tables and chairs.

The Board also approved handbook changes for Farmington High School.

Principal Jon Purifoy asked to increase the parking pass from $5 to $10 per year and also recommended using a 90 percent rule when taking attendance. This means that if students are in class 90 percent of the time, they are counted present.

Law recommended changing the district’s policy on personal days. Currently, employees have two personal days per year and can transfer two sick days to be used as personal days.

Law said there have been times when employees need five days off for events, such as weddings and other circumstances. For such cases, the fifth day would be without pay under the current policy.

Some teachers are honest about it and are not getting paid for the fifth day and others are using a sick day as that fifth day, even though they are not sick, Law said.

He is recommending that staff with five years in the district and a minimum of 30 days sick leave be allowed to use one of those days as a personal day. Law said it is not a change in the number of days given to teachers, just a shift in how they can be used.

“We hope it encourages teachers to accumulate sick days and that we will not have to dock teachers about being honest when others are not being quite as honest,” Law said. “We want teachers to protect their sick days and we want to encourage them to be at work.”

The recommendation will go to the district’s personnel policy committees for consideration before coming back to the School Board.

“We have a lot of celebrating to do this year.”

Stephanie Pinkerton Assistant Superintendent