Elementary Principal Christopher Hooks discussed statistics from recent state assessments conducted in Elderton and Lenape Elementary.
While West Hills Primary and Intermediate students are excelling in Math, Principal Christopher Hooks said teachers at Lenape and Elderton Elementary schools are working to improve scores.
“In Math in third grade, we had a little dip this year,” Hooks said about his state assessment scores for Elderton. “We had a little dip in our Math this year also at Lenape and that’s something we’re definitely focusing on because we’ve had significant PVAAS growth in our Math for the last 3-4 years.”
In English Language Arts (ELA), Hooks said student skill levels were at or above the state average in all categories.
“At Elderton, our ELA scores in third grade was 64% (state average 62%); fourth grade was 77% (state average 64%); fifth grade 59% (state average 59%) and sixth grade was 71% (state average 63%).
While Math in the third grade at Elderton was only at 50% (state average 59%), the sixth grade excelled way above the state average of only 39% to a score of 64%.
At both elementary schools, Hooks said they are concentrating on their ELA program in lower grades.
“Our goal is to build phonics’ skills so we have better readers and when we get into third grade, we can jump those building scores up. We’ve seen over the past few years a significant growth in PVAAS from third grade to sixth grade.”
Hooks said the state standards are a topic of faculty meetings.
“We focus on aligning instruction to PA standards,” he said. “Our faculty meetings this year are focused on the PA standards and making sure that we’re hitting every one of them, when we’re hitting them and how much time we need to spend on them.”
Hooks said parental involvement is very important.
“This is a push we started last year - really getting parents into our buildings, making the phone calls on attendance, making them part of our at-risk process because when we get the buy-in from them, clearly that’s going to be a benefit all around.”
Hooks praised his teaching staff.
“My teachers are working incredibly hard. I couldn’t be happier with them and we’re going to keep after it.”