Dr. John “Jack” Giancola Jr., principal of Dayton and Shannock Valley elementary schools, reviews assessment scores of his schools with state averages.
The Kittanning Paper has been featuring reports from each of the schools that show their standing on state assessments with the average scores from all other schools.
Dr. John “Jack” Giancola Jr. is the principal for Dayton and Shannock Valley elementary schools. He gave a glowing report of statistics.
“We’re very happy with our scores at Dayton, especially third grade. This is the third year in a row that we’re in the 80th percentile, which is quite commendable. We are way above the state average, especially in the area of Math,” he began. “The science is very high too, at a 90%, that’s pretty high. In a little school, that’s really only two kids that didn’t make it. A lot of these kids, especially in Science and some of the other areas in 3rd grade, they’re not just proficient - a lot of them are advanced. I’m really happy with that. The third grade teachers do a great job.”
Giancola said the area on which the schools are placing more emphasis is 6th grade math.
“We’re working on that at Dayton faculty meetings on which standards we need to hit a little more.”
Giancola said there were increases at Shannock Valley in third grade as well. He said he has made some changes with teachers and feels the results will be positive over the course of the year. He also indicated that science scores were very good. While the state average for fourth graders was 78%, Shannock Valley scored 92%.
With both schools, Giancola said focusing on attendance is key.
“We are trying to increase attendance rates. At Shannock Valley, we had 7.7 fewer days missed and Dayton, it was 3.5, so that’s very huge and we’re going to do better this year. I send a robo-calls to students who miss several days. Attendance is important for school success. If they’re not there, they can’t learn because they can’t get the instruction.”