WY-TOP test scores released

Hot Springs County School District #1 (HSCSD1) has a lot to celebrate and also some areas of weakness as shown in the Wyoming assessment rankings released by the Wyoming Department of Education in September.  Teachers and students achieved top ten rankings in academic performance in English language arts, math and science. 

The federal Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) reinforces the authority of states to decide which statewide assessments are the most appropriate for its students. Wyoming’s state assessment, the Wyoming Test of Proficiency and Progress (WY-TOPP), assesses students on the Wyoming Content and Performance Standards. It is administered online and is a computer-adaptive assessment. This state summative assessment is an end-of-year test that measures how much students have learned during the school year.

Students in grades 3-10 take the WY-TOPP and WY-ALT assessments for Math and English Language Arts (ELA). Grade 3, 5, 7, and 9 students are also assessed in Writing on WY-TOPP. Students in grades 4, 8, and 10 are assessed in Science on WY-TOPP and WY-ALT.

There are 48 school districts in Wyoming. The top ten rankings indicate HSCSD1’s percentage of proficient/advanced students in comparison to the other districts small and large, in other words, to determine ranking districts are sorted from highest percentage of students proficient to lowest. HSCSD1 students scored above the state average in 15 of the 19 tested areas and achieved strong results in regard to the percent of HSCSD1 students scoring “advanced” on WyTOPP. Students scoring “proficient” are able to independently demonstrate grade level skills as established by the Wyoming Department of Education in ELA, math and science on the spring assessment. Students scoring “advanced” are able to perform above grade level academic skills. 

HSCSD1 earned three top rankings in 7th, 8th and 9th grade math. The high school had top five rankings in every tested area - English, Math, Science and the ACT Composite. The district also had the 1st/2nd highest percentage of students scoring advanced in eight tested areas across the district in comparison to all 48 of the other districts. 

Areas identified that HSCSD1 needs to work on include 3rd, 4th and 5th grade English Language Arts. For 3rd grade, 40% of students scored proficient or advanced compared to 48% for the state average, 4th grade was 42% compared to 45% and 5th grade was 54% compared to 55%. In math, 38% of 3rd graders scored proficient or advanced compared to the state average of 53%.

According to Breez Longwell Daniels, Curriculum and professional Learning Coordinator, “Scores and rankings show us where we have work to do in regard to collaboratively building a guaranteed and viable curriculum to better support student learning. Together we will get better.”