Warsaw Community Schools is happy with its IREAD-3 test results.
“We’re very pleased by the data,” David Hoffert, WCS chief academics officer, said Tuesday afternoon.
While the Indiana Department of Education isn’t going to officially release overall data until May 1, Hoffert said it has released individual student data to schools. WCS was able to use that data to determine how well “unofficially” Warsaw elementary schools fared.
The purpose of the Indiana Reading Evaluation And Determination assessment is to measure foundational reading standards through grade three. Based on the Indiana Academic Standards, IREAD-3 is a summative assessment that was developed in accordance with Public Law 109 which “requires the evaluation of reading skills for students who are in grade three beginning in the Spring of 2012 to ensure that all students can read proficiently before moving on to grade four,” according to the IDOE Web site.
Third-graders who fail the IREAD-3 must be retained in third grade the next school year under Indiana law, unless a student qualifies for one of three waivers or retakes and passes the test in the summer.
A total of 513 third-graders at the eight WCS elementary schools took part in the IREAD-3 in March. Including exemptions, 96.49 percent passed third-grade, according to WCS’s “unofficial” statistics. Without exemptions, 87.91 percent passed IREAD.
“It’s why we are very excited about this and feel very positive,” Hoffert said.
He also noted that of the 513 WCS third-graders who took the test, 30 scored perfects on the test. A perfect score is 650.
There were 451 third-graders who passed, and 44 students who passed with exemptions. Only 18 third-grade students in the entire Warsaw School System did not pass the IREAD-3.
Broken down by elementary school, Claypool had 36 students who passed, five passed with exemptions, and one did not pass; at Eisenhower, 43 passed, four passed with exemption, three did not pass; Harrison, 62 passed, nine passed with exemptions, two did not pass; Jefferson, 60 passed, six passed with exemption, one did not pass; Leesburg, 59 passed, five passed with exemption, five did not pass; Lincoln, 71 passed, seven passed with exemption, five did not pass; Madison, 66 passed, four passed with exemption, one did not pass; Washington, 54 passed, and four passed with exemption.
Percent passing IREAD-3 without exemptions ranged from 84.93 percent at Harrison to 93.1 percent at Washington.
Percent passing third-grade with exemptions ranged from 92.75 percent at Leesburg to 100 percent at Washington Elementary.
Hoffert reiterated that the data is all unofficial and hand-tabulated by WCS at this point. The state’s official data will be released in a few weeks.
The elementary schools were very close within range of each other, Hoffert said. The literacy coaches worked closely with the teachers in each of the buildings.
WCS Chief Accountability Officer Tom Kline said one reason why Leesburg and Lincoln had the most number of students that did not pass could be attributed to those schools having higher transient rates. While ISTEP requires a student to live in a school district for 162 days to be counted toward that district’s numbers, the IREAD-3 does not have such a rule.
Hoffert said teachers, literacy coaches, teacher assistants and administrators worked very hard to get students ready for the test. He said WCS will be excited to see how it compares to data from other local school corporations and the state when the official data is released in three weeks.
The 18 third-graders who did not pass will have to take summer school and have another opportunity to pass the IREAD-3 and move on to the fourth grade, Hoffert said.
“We want to make sure every student has individualized instruction and remediation,” he said.
This week, Hoffert said, parents will receive a letter from their school indicating how their third-grader did on the test.
For students that did not pass, a meeting of their parents and teachers will be scheduled to work out a plan for the student.
Overall, Hoffert said, “From what our literacy coaches have done, this is very close to what we expected.”
Each student’s progress was tracked over the course of the year so that teachers knew where each student was and what was needed for them to pass the test.
“It came down to individualized instruction for each student,” he said.
“We knew from just the blueprints what the test would look like,” Hoffert said. “Teachers and administrators were pleased at the end of the test and felt they prepared the students well.”
Hoffert also thanked parents for their support.
“I know the test has caused fear and trepidation so the parent support helped us reach this data,” Hoffert said.
