Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By RALPH ANSAMI
Hurley — While Hurley elementary students nearly scored a five-star rating in state testing, the middle-to-high school students did not fare as well, the school board learned Monday.
The elementary students earned a report card score of 79.8, or near the tops of the “exceeds expectations” category, with a four-star rating from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
Middle-high school students, however, scored 71.7, or three stars, in the “meets expectations” class.
Five-star schools are those that are considered to “significantly exceed expectations.”
Two-star schools meet a few expectations and one-star schools, with scores of 52.9 or less, fail to meet expectations.
As in the past, the middle-high school lagged behind the state average scores in mathematics achievement. Hurley scored 27.5, with the state average being 32.3.
Eighth grade math achievement was also under the state average.
School board president Joe Simonich, of Kimball, was again not pleased with the math results. “Math has been a concern of mine beginning years ago,” he said.
While the district has gone to a new math curriculum, including a conversion to a Singapore series, it may take a few years for the results to improve, board members learned.
“Can we improve our scores? Yes, we can,” said 6-12 principal Mel Oja.
Elementary principal Kevin Genisot, asked to assess the report card for the lower grades, said, “I feel fantastic about where we are.”
Earlier in the meeting, fifth grade students who are taught by Mike Swartz and Laurie Lund discussed the new math curriculum. The students came before the school board members and together they tackled math problems.
Lund said the Singapore math, introduced to students from second through fifth grades, helps students learn with model drawings, connected to Notebook.
