Dateline: June 10, 2004

CISD students meet TAKS expectations 

By Ashlee Kidd, Clarendon Enterprise  

The TAKS results are in, and Clarendon public school officials are mostly happy with the scores of local students.

Students in grades three through eleven were given the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) exam this year with the main concern noted by administration being the math portion of the exam.

“We are very pleased with how the students performed this year,” CISD Superintendent Monty Hysinger said. “But our math needs to improve.”

“At the elementary level, we have a few concerns we’re going to address, and at the Junior High and early high school levels statewide and across the region, there are math concerns as well.”

State law requires that third-graders must pass the reading portion of the exam to be promoted to fourth grade, and 100 percent of the third-graders at Clarendon Elementary passed.

The third grade students also were tested in math and scored 86 percent, which is below the state average of 90 percent.

Clarendon fourth graders scored above the state average of 85 percent in reading with 91 percent passing, but fell below the state averages in math and writing. 76 percent passed in math compared to the state average of 86 percent, and in writing 88 percent passed compared to the average of 90 percent.

The fifth grade students in Clarendon were tested in reading, writing, and math and scored above state and regional averages in all three.

“You always want better scores,” Clarendon Elementary Principal Mike Word said. “It’s a hard test now, and I know that in each group, our kids came up on an individual basis.

Word also said that he met with his staff and looked over the test results to determine which areas needed improvement.

“We need to focus more on math, and we’ll do that,” Word said.

Sixth grade students at Clarendon Junior High were tested in reading and math. They fell below the state average of 86 percent in reading with 84 percent passing, but scored higher than the state average of 77 percent in math with 79 percent passing.

The seventh graders were tested in three areas and scored 93 percent in reading, 73 percent in math, and 90 percent in writing. The scores were higher than the state averages of 83 in reading and 70 in math, but fell just below the average of 91 percent in writing.

CISD’s eighth graders exceeded the state averages in all three of the areas they were tested in.

Clarendon Junior High Principal Marvin Elam said the students came close to the level of performance that was expected in both reading and writing, but in math the students still needed improvement.

“We were pretty close to where we thought they’d be and where we set our goals,” Elam said. “In math we’re still struggling, but we’ll get there.”

Clarendon ninth graders exceeded the state averages in both reading and math, while the tenth graders surpassed the state averages in writing, math, social studies, and science.

Clarendon juniors scored above state averages on all four portions of the exam, with passing rates of 88 percent on the writing exam, 97 percent on math, 100 percent on social studies, and 97 percent on science. The state average scores were writing 87 percent, math 85, social studies 97, and science 85, according to information from CISD.

When asked how he felt the high school students did on the TAKS exam, Clarendon High School principal Larry Jeffers simply responded “Vini, Vidi, Vici.”

“We were really pleased with the juniors’ results,” Jeffers said. “We have some that will retake the test this summer and hopefully pass, and the freshmen’s weakest test was math, but that was statewide.

“The sophomores did a great job overall and probably did better than any other class. The teachers did a great job, and we know where we need to go from here to continue to get better,” Jeffers said.

Districtwide, Clarendon students stayed above the state averages in reading, math, writing, social studies, and science.

The school administrators are in agreement that the students did well, but they now see the areas that need improvement.

“We’re starting to break down the test results to see what areas we need to address.” Hysinger said.

“We plan to continue to stay above the state and regional levels to make the students as well as the community proud,” he said.

This marks the second year for the TAKS standardized test. The state began a focused approach to provide scientifically based reading instruction after the creation of the Texas Reading Initiative in 1997.