photo by: Joselyn King

Walt Saunders, assessment and federal programs director for Ohio County Schools, speaks on the results of recent standardized test results before Ohio County Board of Education members.

WHEELING — Ohio County Schools’ elementary standardized test results are strong “and on a roll,” according to administrators. But they also admit there is still improvement needed to improve student proficiency, especially at the high school levels.

Walt Saunders, assessment and federal programs director for Ohio County Schools, said the results show students in Ohio County Schools are getting back to pre-COVID levels.

“We are pretty much above the state average in some categories, but still below in others,” he said. “We’re pretty close to getting back to pre-COVID numbers.”

Saunders and JoJo Shay, innovation coordinator for Ohio County Schools, presented to the Ohio County Board of Education this week data showing both the positives and negatives reflected by the school district’s scores on the West Virginia Statewide Summative Assessment.

“Our elementary scores are excelling, based on comparisons with other counties in the state,” Saunders told board members. “If you take a look at the position where we are with the elementaries, and where we are in the state — we have the ball rolling. Talking about the data … we’re on the right track. We’re moving in the right direction.”

The standardized tests measure the proficiency of students in grades 3-8 in and grade 11 in math and reading, with those in fifth grade, eighth grade and 11th grade also seeing a science component.

Saunders noted that Ohio County Schools saw gains in 11 of the 14 reading and math areas measured, with three seeing decreases. He added that eight of the 13 schools within Ohio County Schools made gains in both language arts and math scores.

But overall, science scores largely took a nosedive this year as the school district first focuses to improve reading and math scores, Saunders admitted.

And despite strong gains at the seventh grade level, improvements are still needed at the sixth grade and high school levels, the assessment shows.

Stagnant High School Results

High school students in 11th grade at Wheeling Park High School and elsewhere across West Virginia each year participate in “SAT School Day” – the day upon which all the junior students take the college entrance exam administered by the College Board. This serves as the standardized test assessment at the high school level.

WPHS test results have remained consistent since 2015, with the scores not outstanding and lagging behind other larger school districts.

This year’s results show 24.9% of WPHS juniors are proficient in math – meaning that about 1 in four students in the class has the math skills thought needed to succeed in college and beyond by the test’s creators.

Of those juniors, 53.1% were proficient in reading.

At the end of the day, Ohio County Schools wants its students to qualify for the state’s PROMISE scholarship to get them to college, Saunders said. Students qualify for the PROMISE scholarship by doing well on the SAT School Day assessment.

“We need to do better than what we do for the kids. It gets them that PROMISE scholarship,” he explained.

What will be new this school year is that the school district will pay for sophomores to take the PSAT, the preliminary assessment that prepares them for the SAT School Day.

“They will get exposure to the types of questions on the test, and their results will give us some baseline data to see where they are next year,” Saunders said.

Ohio County Schools also will now partner with the Khan Academy, a free online service that offers among other things test preparation lessons for the SAT. Saunders noted that the SAT is changing to a digital format this year that abolishes the “bubble sheets” and need for No. 2 pencils.

This year’s 11th graders will be tutored in the new format, and how the questions will be asked, he said.

Elementary Highlights

Ohio County Schools students this year were overall third best among West Virginia’s counties in language arts scores – a spot where the school district has sat in recent years, reported JoJo Shay, innovation coordinator for Ohio County Schools. The proficiency rating among students throughout the school district in language arts jumped from 50% to 53%.

In math proficiency, Ohio County Schools was 10th in the state last year, she continued. The school district has now moved up to sixth overall in math scores.

Third-graders in Ohio County Schools were tops in West Virginia in both math and language arts scores. Last year’s third-grade class was second in math and third in language arts.

Fourth-grade students, who had been sixth in the state last year in language arts scores, came up to fourth among West Virginia’s 55 counties. The same students increased their math scores from 10th in the state to 6th in the state this year.

Middle Creek Middle School “pulled off a ‘plus six'” in that all three grades at the school – third, fourth and fifth grades – improved their scores in both math and language arts, Saunders said.

“That is an accomplishment to hit every grade level with a positive,” he added.

It’s also a special accomplishment when a grade level at a school achieves 80% proficiency, especially when it happens in both math and language arts. That is what happened at West Liberty Elementary, Saunders continued.

West Liberty third grade students achieved a proficiency of above 80% in language arts on the most recent testing, while the same students scored a collective 81.3% proficiency in math. West Liberty Elementary fourth graders also achieved an 80% proficiency in math.

“It’s in the 3rd grade classrooms where it (success on the tests) all starts,” Saunders explained.

At that level students are exposed to the types of questions that will be on the standardized test, and they practice them, Saunders said.

The students also are taught how to take the assessment on a computer and learn the tasks they will need to know during the testing. For example, the young students have to be able to draw pictures on the computer as part of their testing, and how to drag and move items, according to Saunders.

“It’s important to expose students at all grade levels on how to test on the computer,” he said.

Middle School Math Improvements

But the biggest improvements in the test scores came at the seventh-grade level.

Ohio County Schools seventh grade students jumped from 20th last year in language arts to first in the state on the most recent test. Likewise, math scores among the seventh graders took a leap – from 26th in in 2022 to fourth in West Virginia in 2023.

Middle school math scores for seventh and eighth grade students had been below the state average in 2022, forcing a focus on middle school math during the just passed school year, Saunders explained.

The result is that all three middle school grades achieved test scores above the state average in both math and language arts.

“Miss Shay and I met with teachers in every building, and we told them (middle school math teachers) we can’t be below the state average. It’s just not going to happen…,” he said.

The school district will now set number goals for the teachers to strive to achieve, according to Saunders.

“We had a problem with middle school math, so we made it an area of concentration,” he explained. “We brought teachers in, and asked them what they thought was missing, what they thought we should add.

“We tapped the teachers in the field, and their knowledge.”

What the assembled group of educators learned by looking at results for individual students in seventh grade is that some higher achieving students were missing questions in geometry, probability and statistics.

“By reintroducing this information in the classroom, it moved everybody’s scores higher because the higher achieving students were not mastering it,” he said.

Additional tutoring, reteaching and mediation were implemented at the middle school levels, and Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER) funds received by Ohio County Schools were geared toward improving the middle school scores.

Shay added there will continue to be a focus on middle school math. Teachers now have information on how the students they taught last year did on the test, and where there could be improvements. In addition, they have data on the students who will be in their classes this year and what their needs are.

But while the seventh-grade scores showed great improvement, sixth grade language arts scores took a significant tumble.

Language arts scores for the sixth grade students had been fourth best in West Virginia, but this year the Ohio County Schools students dropped to 12th place.

Math scores for the sixth-grade students, meanwhile, came up slightly from 20th last year to 18th on the most recent test.

Saunders said it often happens that students stumble when they leave elementary school for middle school and adjust to a new environment, people and surroundings. He noted there needs to be more efforts to help them more easily adapt and relax.

And What About Science?

The West Virginia Statewide Summative Assessment and “SAT In School” testing don’t just provide scores for math and language arts. There is a science component on the standardized tests for fifth, eighth and 11th grade students.

This year’s scores mostly show science scores in the district very low, and Saunders explained why.

“I’m a trained math teacher. For me, math is the most important thing, but it really is reading,” he said. “When we start prioritizing where we need to improve it is just like triage. First we have to improve the reading scores, then the math scores.

“Science has been in line for treatment. We just have to address the glaring weaknesses first.”

Scores at the elementary level dropped considerably, with only Bethlehem and Ritchie elementaries making gains. The scores at Bethlehem rose from a 20% proficiency last year to a 38.89% this year; and at Ritchie, from 20% to 25.71%.

Elsewhere, Madison Elementary dropped from 24.24% proficiency to just 6.67%, and West Liberty Elementary dropped from 64% to 15.79%

Middle Creek Elementary was at 39.39% last year, and this year dropped to 29.41%. Steenrod Elementary’s scores went from 56.82% to 32% proficiency.

Woodsdale Elementary students scored a 48.48% proficiency last year, and 28.36% this year, while Elm Grove dropped from 43.59% to 39.29%.

Middle Schools did a little better, with Triadelphia Middle School and Wheeling Middle School making gains in science, and Bridge Street and Warwood middle schools decreasing.

The 11th grade students at WPHS scored at 32.87% proficiency – up from 30.21% last year.

Saunders noted at the end of the day Ohio County Schools just wants students to have all the options they can.

“We want to keep our students’ futures wide open,” he said. “We don’t want to narrow it. They have the base knowledge to go forward and do it.”

More detailed data regarding the test scores will be available when it is curated into the school district’s “Balanced Scorecard,” which is to be released in September. The scorecard will take into account such factors as attendance and discipline within Ohio County Schools.

“I’m extremely proud of the work our teachers and administrators are doing,” Superintendent Kim Miller said. “Our students are working very hard and parents have been supportive. We strive for continuous improvement and are always working on new and creative ways to help our students learn.”