Area high schools improve academic scores
All five Greene County high schools improved in their school performance profiles over the past year, according to an assessment by the state Department of Education, but still lag behind in the tri-county area.
Out of the 28 schools in Washington, Fayette and Greene counties, the five Greene County high schools placed in the bottom half in the past school year, with Waynesburg West Greene and Mapletown at the very bottom.
Jefferson-Morgan came out several points ahead of the four other districts in the county with an overall academic score of 74.6. Carmichaels had a 68.9, Waynesburg Central a 65.2, West Greene a 64.4 and Mapletown had 60.8.
“We feel really good about where we are,” said Joseph Orr, high school principal. “I think we’re on the right track. The kids see it and they tell us every day that they love what’s going on.”
Jefferson-Morgan had a score of 82.6 for the 2013-14 school year, but fell to 69.9 the following year. Now, their score is climbing again.
“That down year there were some changes in regards to how the calculations were made,” Orr said.
Other districts recognized their increased high school scores as part of their curriculum changes. Carmichaels Superintendent John Menhart said they’ve recently started new reading and math text books and they added advanced placement courses.
“We’ve been working on that for the last few years,” Menhart said.
Carmichaels has consistently remained in the high 60s with their academic score over the past three years, and this year they increased by 1.7 points. Menhart said the students and staff have been “working really hard on the testing.”
West Greene High School Principal Scott Sakai agreed most of the academic score is calculated by the Keystone and Pennsylvania System of School Assessment exams and how all students have performed.
“We made some adjustments in the curriculum, but it’s also about getting comfortable with the exams,” he said. “I’d like to see our score a lot higher than it is right now and I think we’re working towards that.”
West Greene has increased by a few points each year, from a 54.8 in the 2012-13 school year to 64.4 in 2015-16.
“There was an effort to look at the curriculum so that it would meet the testing requirements so the kids could be more familiar with what they need to know in order to do well on the assessments,” Superintendent Brian Jackson said. “That’s our goal. We want to try to keep climbing.”
Waynesburg Central increased its score by two points from the 2014-15 school year and Mapletown increased by 4.7.
Though Mapletown had the lowest high school score in the county at 60.8, Southeastern Greene’s Bobtown Elementary school did the best out of all the county elementary schools with an 82.7.
“I’m proud of both of our schools and I’m proud of our district,” Southeastern Greene Superintendent Rich Pekar said. “It comes down to basically a team effort. Our kids have to believe that they’re going to be successful and you need the support of the parents and the community.”
The only elementary school that decreased its score was Waynesburg-Central, which went from a 75.7 in 2013-14 to a 66.2 this past year. Superintendent Brian Uplinger said that is probably an “implementation dip” from starting new Common Core standards.
“In 2013 we were starting the process and it’s taking hold now,” he said. “It’s very difficult and we just have to make sure we’re giving the students the right tools that they need to be successful.”