Parents attending last night's Dundee Elementary PTO Meeting got a lesson on testing - and what it means for our students and our school as a whole. Dundee Principal Kaye Kennedy talked about the NESA test results and the MAP tests and changes that have happened with both.
The NESA tests are required and administered by the State of Nebraska. They compare school's results against their scores from last year as well as against other schools in the state. The NESA test is undergoing some changes, though, including big changes last year to the English Language Arts portion of the test. The changes led to much lower scores on the English Language Arts section of the test than in prior years. That happened district-wide and state-wide. In fact, it makes it impossible to compare the English Language Arts scores to the prior year's numbers. At Dundee, 66% of the students met or exceeded expectations in the English Language Arts category. That number is much higher than the district average, but not near where Dundee's numbers were last year in the same category.
In Math and Science portions of the NESA test, Dundee continues to climb over time, with small bumps from year to year. Our 5 year average in Math trend has gone up about 4 points (at 83% meeting and exceeding standards). And in Science, the 5 year trend has gone up about 3 points (to 85% meeting and exceeding). But we know changes are coming to those tests as well that may make it hard to compare year-to-year results.
Omaha Public Schools also implemented district-wide MAP testing for all students in grades Kindergarten through 6th. The MAP test will be taken by Dundee students three times this year, once in September, again in mid-winter, and finally in the spring. The MAP test measures an individual students growth throughout the year. It allows the teachers to teach specifically to students based on what areas they need to improve upon. The teachers at the PTO meeting spoke very highly of the MAP testing's ability to truly measure where students are and what progress they make through the year.
In other PTO news during the meeting:
- The Dundee Direct fundraiser went very well, with more than $20,000 and additional money coming in. Also, the number of family's participating more than doubled after the final push to over 160 families contributing.
- Some of the money raised by Dundee Direct has been given to the school to update technology. Teachers talked about computers that continually crashed or took forever to boot up. They thanked the PTO for their generous donations.
- The OPS Board will celebrate Dundee Elementary's Blue Ribbon Award at their December 4th meeting at 6:30 at the TAC building.
- About a dozen students from UNO's Service Learning Academy helped to clean up the south side gardens. Huge thanks to them!
- The sale of these super cool nighlights to fund a new Buddy Bench at Dundee are going well. Dundee student Ian Petrick spoke about his project and his goals for the Buddy Bench.
- There are several events coming up where we can use some volunteers, including Book Fair and Parent Teacher Conference Dinners.
The NESA tests are required and administered by the State of Nebraska. They compare school's results against their scores from last year as well as against other schools in the state. The NESA test is undergoing some changes, though, including big changes last year to the English Language Arts portion of the test. The changes led to much lower scores on the English Language Arts section of the test than in prior years. That happened district-wide and state-wide. In fact, it makes it impossible to compare the English Language Arts scores to the prior year's numbers. At Dundee, 66% of the students met or exceeded expectations in the English Language Arts category. That number is much higher than the district average, but not near where Dundee's numbers were last year in the same category.
In Math and Science portions of the NESA test, Dundee continues to climb over time, with small bumps from year to year. Our 5 year average in Math trend has gone up about 4 points (at 83% meeting and exceeding standards). And in Science, the 5 year trend has gone up about 3 points (to 85% meeting and exceeding). But we know changes are coming to those tests as well that may make it hard to compare year-to-year results.
Omaha Public Schools also implemented district-wide MAP testing for all students in grades Kindergarten through 6th. The MAP test will be taken by Dundee students three times this year, once in September, again in mid-winter, and finally in the spring. The MAP test measures an individual students growth throughout the year. It allows the teachers to teach specifically to students based on what areas they need to improve upon. The teachers at the PTO meeting spoke very highly of the MAP testing's ability to truly measure where students are and what progress they make through the year.
In other PTO news during the meeting:
- The Dundee Direct fundraiser went very well, with more than $20,000 and additional money coming in. Also, the number of family's participating more than doubled after the final push to over 160 families contributing.
- Some of the money raised by Dundee Direct has been given to the school to update technology. Teachers talked about computers that continually crashed or took forever to boot up. They thanked the PTO for their generous donations.
- The OPS Board will celebrate Dundee Elementary's Blue Ribbon Award at their December 4th meeting at 6:30 at the TAC building.
- About a dozen students from UNO's Service Learning Academy helped to clean up the south side gardens. Huge thanks to them!
- The sale of these super cool nighlights to fund a new Buddy Bench at Dundee are going well. Dundee student Ian Petrick spoke about his project and his goals for the Buddy Bench.
- There are several events coming up where we can use some volunteers, including Book Fair and Parent Teacher Conference Dinners.