Ray School Assessments Sub-Committee
Draft Minutes - January 17, 2007

Attendance:    Bill Bender, Wayne Gersen, Pam Force, Sarah Curtis, Marjorie Rose, Bruce Williams, Bill Mlacak

Meeting started at 10:40 am in the Ray school office conference room.

Marjorie and Bill B showed the draft of the High School assessment inventory.  This provided a framework to follow.

Bill M read Bruce's email with 4 proposed actions:

1. Sherrie Greeley - as reading coordinator and former chair of the assessment committee she will be helpful in both generating a full list of assessments, especially in the area of Language Arts.
2. Pam Graham/Karen Strickland - as School Counselors, they help coordinate all school wide testing.
3. Della/Anna - keepers of all sorts of school data which may be relevant.
4. Grade level teams - can be asked for their listing of both formal and informal assessments.

Bruce asked for clarification about what to include.  Wayne explained that it should be all types of data collection.  It can include attendance.  The committee as a whole will decide which to use.

There was then some discussion about the other schools.  At the Richmond school, they look at NECAP tests, question by question, and compare against the curriculum.  Draft inventories will be available from the other schools in 1 or 2 days.

Bruce handed out a portfolio assessment picture (see attached), which provides a profile for data gathering in the assessment process.

1. NECAP tests.  Only one year of results are available so far—from the October 2005 tests.  Results were examined for Grade 3 question by question, as had been done in the past for NEAPS.  The first results for grades 3 to 5 were available for the first time in May.  The results for the 6th grade from the RMS were also reviewed.  Bruce expressed concern about reading too much into the results.  For example, Ray students didn't write a lot in the written response section.  Answers were very well organized but not detailed enough.  A writing committee was formed as a result.  Another issue that arose is the language that the mathematical questions on the NECAPS use.  The Ray school faculty has discussed whether they should strategically change the language of presenting math problems at the Ray School so that the students would be more familiar with the way the questions were asked in the NECAPS.
   
   One issue about interpreting NECAPS results in the item analysis is that the school might receive the general topics of the questions—but not the questions themselves (so that the testing service can re-use questions).  This makes an item-by-item analysis of the questions more difficult.

2. K-12 Common assessments are in the process of being developed across the 4 main academic areas:  science; language arts; math; and social studies.  There is a content meeting for these areas where one teacher per school meets once a month.  The information flow on the k-12 curriculum and assessment is complex between schools/grades/teachers.  Information is shared across grades with minutes/reports of the meetings.
   
   Math assessments are done at every grade level by end-of-unit tests.  Every teacher will give the same unit tests.  These tests are designed to conform to the k-12 curriculum.  The Ray school curriculum was developed over the past 3-4 years in line with the standards set in the NH state Grade Level Equivalents (GLE's) and NCTM. Unfortunately, the state recently changed the GLE's.   
   
   The analysis of the unit tests is used to examine how the children are doing.  In addition, the teachers meet by grade teams to evaluate the more difficult unit tests (for example, place value in 4th grade) and discuss teaching strategies.   A teacher representative from each grade also meets with other teachers across grades at the district level to discuss and analyze the results.  Feedback to grade teachers from the district level is also provided to close the circle of communication.

3. Gates-Maginitie is primarily a language arts test given in 3/4/5th grades at the beginning of the year and is based on a national norm or standard.  This gives a profile to individual teachers of the kids at their grade level.  The results are used as a diagnostic for the range in the class.  It will sometimes feed into the IEP and prescreening process for a child study team if a child’s results are one year below grade level in math and language arts. This can result in further testing including a running reading analysis under the Title I tutorial program. 

4. Mosaics assessment—is a school-wide (1st-5 grades) assessment for reading comprehension strategies that has been developed and used in the Ray school over the past 5-6 years.  Many teachers use it to both pre- and post test in fall and spring.  The assessment is based on a 7 part rubric.  The analysis is both within grade level and across grade level to help determine the trends/issues/ refinement for teaching which strategies when and how they are taught.   The Ray schools uses peer observation in response to teacher questions and anecdotal evidence to help with adopting best practices.   The mosaics are frequently being refined based on the analysis.
   
   There was a question in the meeting about being able to measure the effectiveness of the mosaic strategy.  Teachers at the upper grades gave anecdotal evidence about how students were adapting and improving as they went through the program.  Bruce Williams noted that it was difficult to use NECAPS results to assess the effectiveness of the program.  He noted it was unfortunate that the NEAPS were discontinued as this might have provided a time series to indicate the impact of mosaics on outcomes.  NECAPS has limited overlap on reading comprehension.
   
   There was an issue raised on linking the mosaics to the GLE and the K-12 curriculum, which groups grades into k-2/3-5.  There is some resistance to do grade level assessments.  The mosaic assessment testing strategies usually skip a year to measure student abilities every 2 years in specific areas.

5. Benchmark Books—K-1 assessment of adequate progress is reading at various times of the year.  The assessment was designed by Sherrie Greeley and is based on a set of books at various levels of difficulty to measure a child’s progress during the year.  Individual teachers work with the 2 reading specialists.  Based on the analysis there may be more running record analyses and possible intervention.

6. Running records --1st grade classroom teachers are trained by Sherrie Greeley to help assess a student’s progress in reading.

7. Phonetic Awareness Screening –training started in late summer.

8. Bridges—5th and 6th grade meet to look at cohorts moving up from Ray school to RMS and also to look at links in K-12 curriculum.

9. Parent Survey—analysis by question across the schools (not broken down by grade).  The staff is examining ways to improve school communication, particularly about the curriculum.

Bruce and Pam expressed concern about the additional work in completing the list, and fully defining all the terms.  They also noted that many QE committee issues were being discussed by email recently.  They were concerned that teachers and staff would not have the time to monitor and give feedback on the quantity of emails on various issues that had been sent in recent days.  Bill M will fill in the draft using the high school template, and then submit it to Bruce to be completed.  Some of the work can be done by parent volunteers so as not to increase teacher workload, but allow the staff to review and comment on drafts.  The document will probably evolve as people remember other assessments.

There was some discussion about maintaining a dialogue, and ensuring that all parties were aware of the process.

The meeting ended at 11:50 am.

Respectfully submitted,

Bill Mlacak

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