Methacton School District Preparing for the Keystone Exams

According to Dr. Diane Barrie, director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment at Methacton School Distirct, high school students across the state will no longer have to take the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment exams, otherwise known as the PSSAs.

Instead, the students will now have to take the Keystone Exams.

“PSSAs are officially gone in high school,” Barrie said, “We have a new test in a new format that only a select group of students only took once, statewide.”

Barrie presented information about the Keystone Exams and how the school district will implement the exams this year to the Methacton School board on Sept. 18, in the Arcola Intermediate School library.

According to Barrie, all 11^th-grade students will take the exam at some point this year, likely by December or in the spring.

The Keystones will test students in subjects of Algebra 1, Literature and Biology.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE)  [see .pdf document in media gallery], the Keystone Exams are end-of-course assessments designed to evaluate proficiency in academic content. The exams are designed to measure the state’s Common Core Standards, which, a PDE document states, are aligned toward college and workplace success.

Barrie explained that the Keystone exams will replace the PSSAs in determining AYP (Annual Yearly Progress) and graduation requirements.  Students that do not meet proficiency in the exam are allowed to have several retakes.

However, this year’s juniors will not need to demonstrate exam proficiency as part of their graduation requirements.

“The first class that will be affected by graduation requirements will be this year’s 8^th-graders,” Barrie said.

Additionally, Barrie said students taking courses in Keystone subjects could take the exam and have the results counted for their junior year. Juniors that have taken courses on Keystone subjects in previous years, however, are still required to take the exam.

One school board member pointed out that teachers having to review or refresh material from prior years may be counterproductive.

“So, parents will be asking why we’re doing this, and the answer will be because the state requires it,” Dr. Timothy Quinn, Methacton School District superintendent, said during the meeting. “This is only occurring because the state didn’t want to invest the funds necessary to keep the PSSA alive during the transition period.”

According to Barrie, another issue would be not knowing the percentage of students needed to pass the Keystones in order to make AYP. Based on last year’s PSSA requirements, 89 percent had to be proficient in math, 91-percent in reading.

While no such data exists for biology, Barrie said she is optimistic Methacton students will do well in that exam.

“I feel really good about us going into the Biology Keystone, knowing that our high school department coordinator, Steve Savitz, has been involved with the state for three years working on writing the Keystone,” Barrie said, explaining that Savitz has experience with a largely unknown test. “He’s disseminating that information to his department members, as well as gaining really good information on how to write a test question.”

According to Barrie, further plans are in place to begin preparing students for the Keystones.

One tactic will continue to align the school district’s curriculum with that of the state's core standards. Another will implement Classroom Diagnostic Tool (CDT) online testing for the pre-Junior-year students, beginning in seventh-and-eighth grades. Eleventh-grade students are expected to have weekly Algebra skills exercises.

“I think we have a comprehensive and coordinated approach to this,” Barrie said. “I just don’t know what next week will bring from the PDE.”

According to Barrie, further details on the Keystone Exams will be made in a public presentation on Oct. 11.