Mount Ayr Elementary ‘Commendable’ in statewide rankings

Mount Ayr Elementary was rated as “Commendable” in the  latest School Performance Profiles released recently by the Iowa Department of Education (DOE).  The School Performance Profiles assesses how public schools perform on a series of required measures.

With a composite score of 481.47out of a possible 700 (68.78 percent), Mount Ayr students outdistanced the state average of 60.95 percent.

While some criteria and the scoring system changed for this year’s Performance Profiles, Mount Ayr Elementary scored its highest percentage in the six-year history of the profile. The 481.47 score was only six points below the new threshold for the “High Performing” rating.

In fact, Mount Ayr students performed significantly above state averages in all but one of the performance areas measured by the state to arrive at a final score:

                                   MAC     State

English/LA proficiency 69.81      72.72

English/LA growth 60.00      50.00

Math proficiency 78.82      69.81

Math growth 69.50      50.00

Science proficiency 74.47      61.55

Chronic absenteeism 10.36      21.63

Attendance growth 3.90      2.18

“ I was very pleased with our overall performance.” said MAC Elementary principal Chris Elwood. “We were above the state averages (or below for Chronic Absenteeism) in eight of the nine categories. We were below in the percent of students proficient in ELA, but we made some great growth. We went from 61% of our students proficient in ELA the previous year to 69 percent proficient last year. That’s great growth overall. We were less than 6 points or less than one percent away from being designated as a ‘High-Performing’ building, which is what we’re always striving for.”

For this year, the DOE revamped the scoring matrix for the assessments  For example, instead of a 100-point scale, the new assessments use a 700-point scale.

Elwood commented on other changes to this year’s performance profile matrix.

“The main changes that were made were taking out the Conditions for Learning Survey and replacing it with Chronic Absenteeism,” he said. “They also now include the percent of students proficient in Science. Since we only take Science in 5th grade, I don’t like that Science counts as much as Math and ELA, since only one grade-level takes the Science assessment. That puts a lot of pressure on 5th grade students and their teachers.”