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LIS measuring students’ improvement through monthly BenchMark Assessments

By Staff | Sep 13, 2012

Nakamura

LAHAINA – Whew! As of Aug. 27, Lahaina Intermediate School is finally fully staffed! The final members to join our LIS staff are Aida Cabatic, ELL; Carol DeForest, SPED; and Glenda Peterson, SPED. We are very happy to have them join us as LIS moves forward with changes we have implemented this school year.

It seems that Wednesday is the most exhausting day of the week. It may be the shortest for students, but the work that goes on in the Common Planning/Data Team meetings is very intense and deep. Change IS exhausting, but I think our teachers will agree with me that it is exciting, and so much is being discovered within the two groups, English/Language Arts (ELA) and Math.

Initial baselines are being set to measure student improvement via EdisonLearning’s monthly BenchMark Assessments (BMA). The BMAs cover the entire year’s worth of benchmarks, even if students have not yet been taught all of them. The purpose of this set-up, according to EdisonLearning, is to see how much knowledge students bring with them at the beginning of school.

As the school year progresses, the amount of students who are proficient in the various benchmarks in the BMAs can determine how they will do on the Hawaii State Assessments (HSA) in reading and math. Reading BMAs are administered during the first week of the month; math BMAs are administered during the second week. This month is the first month BMAs will be administered.

As the BMA data is examined, teachers will be identifying students who are in the various subgroups such as ethnicity, disadvantaged, SPED and ELL. All subgroups must make enough growth in order for the school to meet the adequate yearly progress (AYP) status per the No Child Left Behind law.

Teachers will explore different strategies to help improve student achievement. The first attempt of the HSA-Reading is scheduled for the month of October. We hope to learn through our actions just how effective we can be at supporting our students by applying reading and math benchmarks across all content areas.

Thank you to the individuals who have sent in nominations for our School Community Council (SCC). We have received nominations in the parent and community vacancies. The nomination period ends on Sept. 12. Voting will take place on Sept. 14. Ballots will be available in the school office. Please join us in this process. IMUA!