During the March 19th Board of School Directors' meeting, Dr. Josh Hoyt, Director of Teaching and Learning, presented the winter results of Exeter's benchmark testing, which gives the teachers and the administration a spot check on student progress and academic growth throughout the district. Mrs. Becky Bush, Supervisor of Literacy and ESL, presented updated Acadience and Star assessment results for the elementary grades; while Dr. Joe Alcaro, Supervisor of Mathematics and Academic Enrichment, presented CDT data given at the secondary grades. In nearly all areas, Exeter students showed improvement and growth from the beginning of the year.
While the team reminded those in attendance that these tests are only a snapshot of student abilities and are helpful in predicting early literacy skills and success on state assessments, they illustrated how valuable the tests are for teachers to make real-time strategic instructional shifts in their classrooms in response to their students’ scores. For example, they cited winter data in Lorane that showed gaps in student growth. Through a series of instructional strategies that teachers immediately implemented, students were able to drastically increase their scores just a few weeks later on follow-up Progress Monitoring tests.