Salisbury Math Scores Improve

Salisbury High School math scores have improved markedly on tests the district implemented after some of its students math scores on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment exam last year, school officials said.

Just under 54 percent of Salisbury 11th graders, who are now seniors, met the standards in math on the 2011 PSSA. The proficiency requirement was 67 percent. The PSSA is taken in 11th grade and grades 3 to 8.

The district's math department was required by the state to establish a system to identify students early who are academically at-risk and support them with interventions based on student needs.

"This was something we had identified prior to the school improvement plan coming out," said Cathy Meholic, chair of the Salisbury High School math department who heads a team tasked with analyzing why the math scores dipped.

Among the district's plans:

• Salisbury Middle School students will no longer be placed in high school math based on their PSSA scores.

"Now that eighth grade is up to almost 90 percent - 93 percent proficiency, it is showing that is not a good indicator of how they're going to be successful at the high school level," Meholic said.

Instead, students will be placed in high school math based on:

• Study island scores in algebra and geometry.
• CERT, an algebra readiness test.
• Quiz and test score averages, rather than overall eighth grade course work.
• Teacher recommendation.

Assistant Superintendent Louise Beauchemin said part of the challenge Salisbury faces is "changing demographics," that includes more transient students who enter the district in high school and have not been educated in the district's elementary or middle schools.

In data collected from the last three graduating classes:

• 20 percent of the students who take the 11th grade PSSA enter the Salisbury School District sometime in high school.
• The students who are struggling are often the transfer or transient students.
• 8 percent of students enter the district in middle school.
• About 28 percent to 30 percent of the students who take the PSSA have not been educated in the Salisbury elementary schools.

Among the highlights presented in a report at a recent school board curriculum and technology committee:

• High school student math scores at all levels showed improvement this year in benchmark tests known as study islands.

• Salisbury High School transfer students will be required to take an entrance math exam to determine how much algebra and geometry they've had.

• The state requires the district to show its 11th grade math scores have "made adequate yearly progress," by either scoring 78 percent proficiency or above or by showing "safe harbor," a 10 percent growth in the scores of students who scored at below basic or basic levels.

• 11th grade math scores have improved from 54 percent to 67 percent proficiency so far this year.