Fall MAP Assessment: Student Growth & information on our Distance Learning Plan

September 29, 2020

On behalf of our full school community, we wish to once again recognize all the support you provided us during a challenging 2019 – 2020 School Year.

We could clearly “see” that support on the MAP test that our students took during the first month of school. The results showed us that either physically, or virtually, we continue to live our mission of “cultivating diversity, respect, knowledge, and character ….”

On Friday, during our school’s Professional Development Day, our team was able to fully analyze our September MAP scores in Reading and Math. The goal was to inform us about how our distance learning program (used last year) supported student learning, helped our teachers mitigate the impact on not holding in-person relationship-based learning, and to ensure students at every level of learning get back on track.

The results and some quick summary points are below.

ISO FALL 2020 MAP SCORES EVALUATION

95% of the results are within the standard deviation.

• All classes, with the exception of one, showed measurable academic progress over the course of the last school year.

However, most importantly:

The results, in general, do reflect that our distance learning plan used last year helped to mitigate student academic loss. The results are significantly better than the traditional “summer slide.” Our students’ results are also clearly better than the mathematical forecast which was created in April and “suggests that when students head back to school next fall, overall they are likely to retain about 70 percent of this year’s gains in reading, compared with a typical school year, and less than 50 percent in math.” (https://www.the74million.org/article/researchers-urgent-message-for-schools-start-planning-now-for-a-precipitous-covid-slide-next-year/)

Final thoughts … this exercise allowed us to make adjustments on our updated distance-learning plan to further support academic achievement. It is clear that with your help, our students are “set up for success”, as we transition back to our school site, and physical learning.

While we know from prior experience that nothing will be easy, we also know that administrators, teachers, and parents must continue to work together to mitigate the impact and get kids at every level both academically — and socially — back on track!

Jeff Trudeau: Director

Jalisa Mixon: Associate Elementary School Principal