With the release of the Smarter Balanced test scores a month ago, the Dell Rapids School administration has been making plans on how to improve on their scores next year.  Principals Mr. Jay Nelson, Mr. Fran Ruesink, and Dr. Kimberly Kludt presented their ideas to the Dell Rapids School Board during the school board’s regular meeting on Monday, October 12th.

The Dell Rapids Elementary School was labeled a status school, meaning it performed in the top 5-10% of schools in the Student Performance Index (SPI) across South Dakota.  The SPI for elementary and middle schools is a combination of attendance and Smarter Balance test scores.

Mr. Nelson stated, “I’m very, very pleased with that. It goes back to obviously attendance of students and parent’s support of the school, and of course a great staff working with our kids on a very difficult test.”

Mr. Nelson also mentioned a possible change in the elementary school’s recording of attendance.  He said that it’s a state directive to almost set up periods of the day in the elementary school much like the high school does.  He believes this new reporting may help improve the attendance records for his students.  Mr. Nelson also has plans in place to continue to provide support to students that did not meet standards on the Smarter Balanced tests, but also to provide more support to those students who may have met standards by just a few points to help improve their scores next year.

Mr. Ruesink echoed the statements of Mr. Nelson on providing support to those students that didn’t meet the standards as well as supporting the students that met standards by only a few points.  Mr. Ruesink also said that if scores don’t start to improve, they’ll have to start asking other schools what they are doing differently.

“That’s what we’re going to have to do is start looking at schools that are performing really well, and just say, ‘What are you doing? What’s different in your instruction than what we’re doing?’”, said Mr. Ruesink.

Dr. Kludt explained to the school board some of the changes the high school is working on to improve their scores.  She stated that teachers are making more use of the SDMyLife ACT Test Prep in classrooms, which correlates very closely to the Smarter Balanced test scores.  She also said they are “raising the bar” in all of the classes to include more reading, more writing, and more rigor.  The high school administration is also requiring the students to take more rigorous classes, decreasing the the number of study halls and teacher assistance periods to keep students in the classrooms, and also implementing plans for a new “Quarrier Way” program.