Fulton Graduation Rates Climb to 84 Percent, Broad State Testing Results Discussed

by Mikayla Kemp | August 29, 2017 11:08 pm

FULTON, NY – Fulton City School District officials were eager to announce the district’s most recent success during a regular board of education meeting.

Executive director of instruction and assessment, Elizabeth Conners, along with G. Ray Bodley High School principal, Donna Parkhurst announced that the FCSD high school graduation rate was officially reported at 84 percent for the June 2017 graduates.

While the final number has room to slightly fluctuate with the official results of August graduates pending completion of summer courses, Parkhurst said the current rating brings an increase of eight percent over last year’s 76 percent graduation rate.

The trend of increasing graduation rates is not new to FCSD after seeing an increase to 76 percent in 2016 from 69 percent in 2015, and even going as far back as 2013 to when the district saw only a 65 percent graduation rate, Parkhurst said.

Such a task is no small feat and was very thoroughly referred to as a team effort, Conners expressed.

“We have collectively acknowledged that this has been a true team effort, a group approach that has been able to get us to this point,” said Conners.

Following the announcement, the board of education was given a brief overview of recently released state testing results for grades third through eighth, with a more in depth presentation to follow at a later meeting.

The presentation compared proficiency rates between FCSD with all NYS results as well as Oswego County school districts. Proficiency is defined as reaching scoring levels three and four.

All students in NYS altogether showed a one percent increase in English Language Arts and Math scores in grades third through eighth.

Statewide ELA results for all students in grades third through eighth reaching proficiency landed at 40 percent, while FCSD saw 23 percent of all students in grades third through eighth reach proficiency in ELA, reaching three percent less than last year and falling four percent less than Oswego County’s overall results while matching the proficiency rates of other urban-suburban high needs school districts.

Similarly, statewide Math results for all students in grades third through eighth reaching proficiency landed at 40 percent, while FCSD saw 30 percent of all students in grades third through eighth reach proficiency in Math, reaching five percent less than last year and falling three percent less than Oswego County’s overall results while performing eight percent higher than other urban-suburban high needs school districts.

School officials pointed out significant findings including a 46 percent proficiency rating for FCSD students in fourth grade that out-performed statewide results and all other Oswego County school districts as well as an eighth grade math proficiency rating of three percent that, while shockingly low, fell similar to other districts ratings including 5 percent for all of Oswego County, six percent for other urban-suburban high needs school districts, and 22 percent statewide.

While advanced course students did not take the eighth grade math test, unusually low results across the board lead school officials to believe the test was very difficult.

Further conditions of testing such as opt-out percentages and online test usage will be considered and presented at a board meeting in the month of September.

“We need more depth to grapple with it and really dig in,” said FCSD superintendent, Brian Pulvino.

Board president, David Cordone referred to the tests as well as the population of students sitting as “moving targets.”

Conners said that even if struggling in performance on grades third through eighth assessments, the district is getting students to graduate, as exemplified by the recent spike in graduation rates.

Conners noted that the district will continue implementing strategies to help students be successful in their testing including instructional coaches at each building in the district, virtual field trips, ELA learning programs such as Read 180 and System 44 for ELA intervention, digital products through Amplify in grades kindergarten through second and expanding to grades third through fifth to continue to embed literature, research, and technology into student’s daily lives.

Source URL: https://oswegocountytoday.com/news/fulton/fulton-graduation-rates-climb-to-84-percent-broad-state-testing-results-discussed/

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