Five districts enact plan to improve MAP scores

KENNETT, Mo.--After attending a Turnaround Program over the summer, the Kennett School District has implemented a 90-day plan to get the district on track to raise Missouri Assessment Program test scores.

Kim Lowry, principal of Kennett's South Elementary School, said the plan was developed during a "Turnaround Program" at the University of Virginia, the Daily Dunklin Democrat reported.

"[The University of Virginia] has always ran this program through urban schools and we are the first rural schools to be involved in the turnaround program," Lowry said. Charleston, Hayti, Caruthersville, and Senath-Hornersville districts were selected from the Bootheel, she said.

Recently, these five schools held a meeting at Hayti to discuss the successes of their 90-day plans and the obstacles that were causing problems in reaching their goals.

"We are working mainly on data collection and getting our pacing guides and benchmark testing [established]," Lowry said.

Lowry said there are two major challenges the district must overcome to reach their goal.

"I think faculty buy-in is one thing [all districts] are looking at," Lowry said, attributing the second factor to exhaustion from trying to make everything right.

Lowry said the goal of Kennett's 90-day plan is to develop pacing guides and benchmark tests so that the district can monitor its students' progress throughout the system and make sure they are meeting the benchmark before the MAP test is given.

"Just knowing how much needs to be done and feeling like the end is not ever near [is exhausting]," Lowry said. "It is going to be a long process of putting together the pacing guides and benchmark exams and collecting data."

Lowry said the benchmark tests will be aligned to the MAP test.

"They have professors from [Southeast Missouri State University and the University of Missouri] who have also attended the meeting in Virginia with us and they are doing research on the successes of urban schools and rural schools and we are the first rural schools to be involved with it," she said.

Lowry said an outside firm was hired to help the district with its benchmark testing and pacing guides. The firm will be in Kennett next week to work with teachers throughout the district.

Lowry said she feels that after the plan is fully implemented, the district will have a better idea of what to do to improve the test scores.