Mitchell discusses NeSA scores

The Kimball Board of Education received the first update on NeSA test scores from new Director of Assessment and Curriculum Vicki Mitchell at its regular board meeting Monday night.

Mitchell, who was appointed the position at the end of the last school year, reported that the district recently received Nebraska Standard Assessment (NeSA) scores.

“They are embargoed, so we cannot be sharing specifics right now,” Mitchell said. “We had an idea at the end of spring where we were at, but the cut scores were not finalized.”

An embargo is placed on the test scores to allow the opportunity to dissect scores and ensure all data collected is correct.

Mitchell said some scores were a bit of a surprise and caused classes to change from previous years.

“We showed improvement in many areas. Like I said, we can’t be very specific,” Mitchell said. “We had three grades that went up in reading and two the went up in math. We had improvement in many areas.”

Mitchell said the district plans on identifying problem areas, and tracking which classes have improved every year. The district can then isolate data and potentially make changes to improve every area in all grades.

“We did have one elementary grade that was above the state average in all their tests,” Mitchell said. “We had one junior high discipline above state average in our test and one high school discipline that was above the state average in their test.”

NeSA data has been collected isolating the weak and strong areas in each discipline and will compared with Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) data to further pinpoint weaknesses.

“We will be working on identifying and fixing them,” Mitchell added. “We will also be looking for trends. Are we seeing the same things year after year in a certain grade? What is working for the ones above state average? What are they doing to get the kids to that point? What classes are showing improvement year after year?”

For instance, the wider spread the testing for a class, the higher the scores, Mitchell said.

More information will be shared publicly Oct. 14 with the state of the school report. Rates for graduation as well as drop-out rates will be shared in November.

Mitchell plans to address the strengths and weaknesses of the classrooms and curriculum throughout the coming year.

“We are going to be actively addressing curriculum throughout the year,” Mitchell concluded. “The administration has worked on drawing (that assessment) up. We have seen definite improvement as we have done this.”