By Aleasha Sandley, Herald Bulletin Staff Writer
December 04, 2008 11:01 pm
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LAPEL — Student Travis Hobbs wasn’t too surprised at his exemplary ISTEP scores.
The Lapel Elementary fifth-grader, who scored well above passing levels on all the test subjects, had always done well on the standardized tests before, so when he received his results Thursday afternoon at school, he was happy but not shocked.
“I was happy that I had passed, but I was just kind of expecting it,” he said.
Hobbs’ class at Lapel Elementary did the best of all grade levels there, with 81 percent of students passing both English and math portions of the test and 91 percent passing math. Other high scores were fourth-graders, of which 89 percent passed English, and sixth-graders, of which 94 percent passed math.
On overall passing grades, the school was split on progress over last year, with third-graders up from 70 percent to 73 percent, fifth-graders the same at 81 percent, fourth-graders down from 74 percent to 69 percent and sixth-graders down from 84 percent to 78 percent.
Sixth-grade teacher Cheryle Wallace said tutoring the students and helping them during nonteaching times helped her identify their needs and boost scores.
“In that way, we can help children beyond what they generally can achieve,” she said.
The success of a class really depends on all the teachers the students have had up until the test is taken, as they take the tests only three weeks into the new school year, third-grade teacher Betsy Beeman said.
“It’s the groundwork that has been laid before they come to me,” she said. “It’s really a reflection of all the hard work the previous teachers have done with them.”
This year, students also will take ISTEP tests in the spring.
“A reflection of my teaching will be the spring test, and hopefully their scores keep going up,” Beeman said.
Wallace said ISTEP score day is always exciting and a bit nerve-wracking for teachers.
“The day that they get their test scores, I’m probably more antsy than they are,” she said.
But for Hobbs, his scores only affirmed that he was good at his favorite subject: math.
“Math helps me a lot,” he said. “That’s what I use more than just about anything else.”
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Lapel High School had a significant change in the number of students passing the ISTEP test over last year. Tenth-graders passed with 67 percent overall and 74 percent in English compared to 57 percent overall and 61 percent in English last year. Other continual bright spots in Lapel schools include sixth-grade math (94 percent this year and last year), fifth-grade math (91 percent this year and 89 percent last year) and seventh-grade math (89 percent this year and 92 percent last year).
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