Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 14, 1993 TAG: 9310140141
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-11 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEWBERN LENGTH: Medium
These are the new tests that all students now are required to pass by the time they reach the high school level.
Shirley Cook, director of curriculum and instruction, told the School Board at its meeting in Newbern Elementary School on Tuesday night that a teacher will be assigned to each student who has not yet passed a segment of the literacy testing program.
"They will monitor that student until they pass," she said. "Parents will know exactly where the weak areas are."
Students can take the tests as often as twice a year. "They will continue to take it until they pass," Cook said.
This is the first full year the testing program has been carried out in Pulaski County, starting at the fourth-grade level.
Seventy-two percent of all students who took the tests earlier in other grades passed them, but 65.9 percent failed one or more.
"There's a lot of reasons why children have difficulties," Superintendent William Asbury said. "It's not the easiest test in the world. Adults look at it and have some trouble with it.
"If everybody can pass it at the first administration, it's not worth very much," he said. "The idea is to pull standards up."
A literacy development plan is being required for students who do not pass one or more parts of the Literacy Passport Test. Parents or legal guardians will sign the forms after test results and plans to provide assistance are explained.
Each school will keep a separate Literacy Passport file containing the assistance plans for each student. Each student's plan will follow him or her from elementary to middle and high school levels.
In other business, the board learned that a before-school and after-school program for students started this year through the Pulaski YMCA will close Tuesday at Draper Elementary School due to lack of participation.
It is working at other schools, with more than 100 students taking part.
The board meeting was moved to Newbern Elementary as part of a goal to hold a meeting at each school in the system during the past year. Meetings usually are held in Pulaski at the county administration building but, every month or so, the board decided to move its meetings around to the various schools.
"This will pretty much wrap up our tour of the schools," Chairman Ron Chaffin said. "But we will be back to visit."
by CNB