Pickett County Schools reporting measurable student growth across multiple subjects following the release of recent TCAP testing data.
Director of Schools Melissa Robbins said the district focused on tracking the progress of specific student groups as they transitioned from one grade level to the next. Robbins said the school system achieved its primary goal for the year by seeing those students grow academically during that period.
“We may not have met all of our goals, but we are seeing success, and that’s a shoutout to the hard work from our teachers, our staff members, our students, and our administrators,” Robbins said. “And you know, we are just really proud of that.”
Robbins said the district saw social studies scores grow by more than 20 percent, marking one of the strongest areas of performance. Robbins said math scores for grades three through 12 showed growth of 18 percent or more, while English Language Arts scores saw a 6 percent increase.
Overall, Pickett County saw a significant jump in overall math proficiency for all grade levels, from 19.9 percent of students at or exceeding expectations to 26.6. In English/Language Arts, Pickett County improved from 32.1 to 34.6 percent proficiency.
“We do see room for improvement with our achievement, but our position on that is if we can grow our students then the achievement will come,” Robbins said. “So that’s where we’re seeing, you know, the gap, but we do see where in some of our areas for ELA we exceeded the state’s scores, so we’re celebrating that as well.”
Robbins said the district is also seeing a decrease in chronic absenteeism at both the K-8 and high school levels. Robbins said keeping students in the classroom more consistently correlates directly to better educational outcomes and higher test scores.
“Whoever’s doing the talking is doing the learning,” Robbins said. “So if our students are able to sit with their partner and make sense of what’s being taught and then we come back again and under that learning, they are going to make progress.”
Robbins said the district is continuing a strategic plan that involves teachers digging deeper into curriculum standards to ensure they understand exactly what is being asked of students.
