Nearly 1,000 Allen County Primary Center (ACPC) students, teachers, and support staff celebrated proficient status this morning at the school. The designation for the 2013-14 school year is based on the results from last spring’s Unbridled Learning: College and Career Readiness testing.
“Why do we come to school?” was the question Primary Center principal Tim Wilson asked students as the assembly got underway. “We come to school to learn and today is a special day. Today, we have come to school to spend some time celebrating. When you show improvement as part of the learning process, you should celebrate. Today, we are celebrating learning that occurred last year. For the first time ever, Allen County Primary Center is considered a proficient school.”
In the Unbridled Learning results released last month, the Primary Center’s score rose from 61.0 last year to 70.4---an increase of 9.4. The school also went from the 34th percentile last year to the 73rd percentile this year. As a result, the Primary Center is classified as a “Proficient” school.
“That means that we are in the top 70 percent of all the elementary schools in the state of Kentucky,” Wilson explained. “There are 720 elementary schools in the state and that means that we scored better than 504 elementary schools in the state of Kentucky.”
The celebration included recognition for the school’s students, teachers, administrators, and support staff. Each staff member received a pin with the school’s motto----“ACPC, Dream, Believe, Achieve.”
“We have great students and we have a whole lot of adults in this building that do a lot for you,” Wilson told the students. “They are so important.”
Four students were selected to share with their school cornerstones to success---commitment, confidence, effort, and goals. Claire Robison talked briefly about commitment while Renick Jones spoke about confidence. Jadyn Williams shared words on the topic of effort with Karsyn Ashby speaking about goals.
Principal Wilson also praised the students for their efforts this year---efforts reflected in improved scores from STAR tests conducted at the beginning of this year to a second round of testing in recent weeks.
“Third grade has improved in reading from 46 percent of students at benchmark when school started to 56 percent for students at benchmark,” Wilson said. “In math, third grade went from 58 percent to 85 percent of students meeting benchmarks.”
Improvements were also seen in second grade as students improved in reading from 44 percent to 60 percent. In math, second graders went from 42 percent benchmark to 59 percent at benchmark. In first grade, students were tested in math with scores in STAR testing improving from 60 percent to 73 percent of the students making benchmark in the testing recently. The upward trend also extended to kindergarten where students increased their early literacy test results from 39 percent to 63 percent.
Wilson recognized each class and challenged the students to keep up the outstanding work.
“You all are doing a great, great job,” Wilson added. “We want you all to be learning every day. We are never done learning. We are a proficient school this year but that’s not where we want to stop.”
The final part of the program was the unveiling of a banner reflecting the school’s Proficient status for the 2013-12 school year.