Hansen receives high marks for hitting MCAS targets

By Mike Berger

For the second year in a row, the Hansen Elementary School has achieved Level 1 status for meeting its “gap narrowing goals” on the MCAS exam. The Hansen was one of 42 elementary schools in Massachusetts to receive this mark, which is the highest of the state’s five accountability levels.

All of the other Canton schools remained at Level 2, and the district as a whole is currently at Level 2 as well.

Jen Henderson, Canton Public Schools’ director of curriculum and instruction, presented the spring MCAS results to the School Committee on Thursday, October 16, and both she and School Superintendent Jeff Granatino were pleased with the results but agreed that there is still room for improvement.

“The MCAS provides us with important information that we can use to assess the progress our students are making and to better inform our instructional strategies,” Granatino said. “In addition, these results help us evaluate and build our curriculum to meet the needs of all students. It’s important to remember, though, that this is only one type of summative assessment that we use and that there are a number of ways our educators are continually monitoring the progress their students are making throughout the year.”

“We had a number of successes across the district and are continuing to make progress in many of our subgroups in ELA (English Language Arts), math, and science,” Granatino added. “That being said, we realize that we need to continue to narrow the proficiency gap and work towards increasing the student growth rate so we can raise the Progress and Performance Index (PPI) at all levels. This will put us in better position to become a Level 1 district.”

Granatino said both administrators and teachers will continue to analyze student performance data and will use it to “establish goals that can help us attain the progress we want to see.”

“We have tremendous students in Canton,” he said, “and I am confident that the talented and dedicated educators in all of our schools will continue to take the needed steps that will allow our students to grow.”

Henderson, in her introductory remarks to the committee, noted that in 2012-2013 the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) dropped the requirement that all Massachusetts students must be proficient on the MCAS exams by 2013. In its place, she said, the DESE implemented a new set of proficiency targets for each school that must be reached by 2017.

The new accountability system takes into account all students in the school, including high needs students, English language learners (ELL), and students with disabilities. Schools also receive extra points for moving a particular number of students from the warning level to the needs improvement category and from proficient to advanced — as was the case in many of the Canton schools.

Henderson noted that both the Kennedy School and Canton High School had a number of students who were in the “high proficient” or “low advanced” categories. She said those students might need additional challenges, such as extension activities or Advanced Placement courses. She also noted that significant movement between levels was achieved at both the Galvin and Hansen schools.

Henderson said the Luce had significant student growth for the at-risk and high needs students but experienced a decline in its PPI score for all students. Targeted interventions supporting and challenging all students will be the discussion at data meetings, she said.

Henderson said the JFK saw a decline in student growth, although it was above target for all students in ELA and is currently ranked in the 95^th percentile (highest performing) of all schools of its type.

Henderson said the high school, which is currently in the 67^th percentile, was above target for all students in ELA and saw an increase in the number of students who moved up a level in science. The middle school (67^th percentile) also had significant movement between levels in ELA and math.

At the Luce (58^th percentile), the growth in ELA for high needs students was well above target, and the number of high needs students who moved to the advanced level nearly tripled. There was also an increase in the amount of advanced scores for students with disabilities in both math and ELA.

Speaking to the committee about budget implications for the next fiscal year, Henderson said the recent investment in additional tutors has been beneficial and also asked for more reading specialists at the middle and high schools.

The school principals will now take the results from the MCAS tests and use them to guide their School Improvement Plans, which will be presented to the committee later this year or early next year.

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