By Dave Vrbas

The Wauneta Breeze

As is typical when standardized tests are handed out to different groups of students under varying circumstances, Wauneta-Palisade’s statewide report card for 2008-09 is a mixed bag.

Despite a noticeable dip in the percentage of high school students meeting writing standards, WP’s report to the Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) shows the district is doing a sufficient job in the overall education of its students. 

According to federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) accountability ratings, the WP district met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) during the 2008-09 school year, an upgrade from the prior year when participation levels of 75 percent earned them a spot on NCLB’s list of Title I schools in Need of Improvement. 

Overall, the district was given a Not Met, Improvement Shown status for the 2008-09 school year due to NCLB’s stipulation of consecutive years of progress not being achieved as of yet. 

All testing administered for the NDE’s State of the Schools report was done during the 2008-09 school year, so grade-level assessments reflect pupils in each grade during that school year. 

The state standards for reading, mathematics, science and writing take into account all students in each grade, including English Language Learners and those in Special Education. 

At WP, Special Ed numbers were 11 percent of the student body while the statewide average is just above 15 percent. No English Language Learners were taught at WP during the 2008-09 school year, a contrast to the 6 percent reported statewide.

WP students received ‘exemplary’ or ‘very good’ assessments in both reading and mathematics. 

In reading, all WP third, fifth, sixth and eighth-grade students met reading standards, while 93 percent of seventh-grade students and 92 percent of last year’s 11th-grade students met standards.

Of the 24 11th-grade students testing on the reading portion of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills standardized test, 37 percent, or nine students were above the national average.

Last year’s fifth, sixth and eighth-graders also all met math standards, as did 93 percent of WP 11th-graders and 92 percent of third-graders. Roughly 87 percent of last year’s seventh-grade students met the state standard.

On the math portion of the ITBS, nearly 42 percent of this year’s senior class members were above the national average on their scores. In the past five years, those numbers typically fell in a range from 73 percent to 91 percent, but this year’s participation numbers were higher than in recent years.

Science percentages were exemplary, with all students tested — fifth, eighth and 11th-graders — making the grade, for a perfect 100 percent of students meeting state standards. In 2007-08 that figure was 85 percent.

Writing scores, an area where only eighth and 11th graders were tested, told an entirely different story. 

Only 80 percent of last year’s eighth-grade students achieved the state standard, while just 65 percent of 11th grade students met standards.

ACT scores at WP stood at an average of 21 during 2008-09, the second highest average in the past five years. That district average landed just under the national average of 21.1 and Nebraska’s state average of 22.1.