District works to improve Regents test results

PINE PLAINS— Stissing Mountain Middle/High School Principal Tara Grieb brought the 2017 Regents exams results to the Pine Plains Central School District Board of Education’s attention on Wednesday, Feb. 14, and proposed a few initiatives to improve results.

Grieb spoke of students’ strengths and weaknesses and what the school district is doing to address the challenges.

She said students enrolled in a New York state high school are required to pass five core exams in order to graduate.

The first exam is on global studies and consists of a two-year comprehensive exam typically taken by 10th-grade students. Grieb said this exam proved to be the most difficult exam for students. 

Roughly 40 percent of students scored at a proficiency level while another 40 percent scored at a proficiency level with a low pass option and 32 percent scored at a mastery level, resulting in a 72 percent total passing rate. The low-pass safety net option allows a student with a disability to meet the testing requirements for a local diploma by achieving a score between 55 and 64 on one or more of the required Regents exams.

For future testing, Grieb said the district plans to modify the global exam with hopes to make the test easier for students to comprehend.

The next exam is on Algebra I and is typically taken by students enrolled in the ninth grade or eighth-graders who have advanced to algebra. With a 95 percent total passing rate, 68 percent of students scored at a proficiency level, 70 percent scored at a proficiency level with a low-pass option and 24 percent scored at a mastery level, which Grieb said is a major improvement.

Typically taken by ninth-grade students, last year’s Living Environment exam had a 97 percent total passing rate with 59 percent of students scoring at a proficiency level, 59 percent at a proficiency level plus low-pass option and 38  percent at a mastery level. 

Taken by high school juniors, 41 percent of students scored at a proficiency level on the U.S. History Regents exam while 46 percent at a proficiency level plus a low-pass option and 43 percent at a mastery level, totaling at 89 percent in total students passing. 

For the English Language Arts (ELA) Regents exam, 19 percent of Stissing Mountain junior passed at a proficiency level while 23 percent passed at a proficiency level with a low-pass option and 68 percent passed at a mastery level, resulting in 90 percent of students passing.

For areas in need of improvement, Grieb highlighted the results of the Global Regents exams. Additionally, she pointed out the 5 + 1 option that the state of New York has established for students: If students take an additional science or mathematics Regents exam, they can substitute it for a history Regents exam. There was also some discussion of having an arts substitution put in place.

Considering how the district scored on the exams in comparison to New York State and Dutchess County, Grieb said Pine Plains isn’t far behind. She contemplated the benefits of setting up interventions, including roundtable meetings with students, communicating with parents and collaborating with assessment teams that would feature Grieb and Assistant Principal Ryan Carney.

Rather than “regurgitating facts,” Grieb suggested having teachers modify their instruction to focus on looking at content with a deeper analysis. 

In order to determine what works and what doesn’t, she recommended the district restructure its academic intervention services for students and align instruction to focus more on what the students can do rather than what they know. Grieb also suggested that the district continue its writing-based teaching strategies as developed through its collaboration with Bard College.