It looks bad, Old Rochester Regional High School Principal Michael Devoll told the ORR School Committee on November 30, but the data he was about to present to the committee was ironically positive data, showing improvement at the school despite the state’s downgrade from a Level 1 school to a Level 2 school.
The culprit, said Devoll, was the extra points the school received last year due to a significant 10% increase in advanced-level student performance on the PARCC and MCAS scores.
“We would’ve had to increase the ‘advanced’ another ten percent,” Devoll said, “which would be near impossible.
The scores reflected a decrease in the number of tenth graders who were ‘not proficient’ in the material, which brings the school up to a 90% proficiency rate.
“We will return to a Level One school next year,” said Devoll. “I’m confident we will.”
Devoll went through the graphs that measure this year’s data against the last three years, showing steady improvement.
“All the data you’re going to see is going to be positive,” he said. “But we dropped to a Level Two school because of our CPI.”
CPI stands for Composite Performance Index, a way the state measures progress towards achieving the goal of narrowing proficiency gaps.
Devoll celebrated the particular gains made by the school’s ‘high needs’ sub-group, which includes disabled students and those with IEPs (Individualized Education Plans).
“While we didn’t meet our target for the whole school, we met it for our high needs sub-group,” Devoll said, “Which is an important thing that not all schools can meet.”
Biology scores, Devoll added, have also increased to an all-time school high, with only one failure out of 180 students who took the test and only 13% needing improvement.
“We’re performing, we’re getting the data, and I believe that we’ll be back up to a Level-One school next year with our work,” said Devoll.
According to Devoll, every school within the same cohort with similar socio-economic and population statistics either dropped down to a Level 2 school or stayed at the Level 2 status, except for one.
On another positive note, Devoll said 100% of tenth graders passed the ELA MCAS.
“I’m just really impressed with the math scores across the board,” said School Committee member Heather Burke. “It’s really amazing how our students are performing so well on these high level math tests.”
The next meeting of the old Rochester Regional School Committee is scheduled for January 11 at 6:30 pm at the ORRJHS media room.
By Jean Perry