Student test scores for the 2023-2024 academic year are in, and the Hampton Elementary School is proud to report progress in all curricular areas and on all measurements. At a July 24 meeting of the Board of Education, Principal Patrice Merendina presented charts and graphs to illustrate the students’ scores. There are three tests students in kindergarten through grade six must take.
In the I-Ready Diagnostic Assessment, only 10%, or six students, were on, or above, grade level in math last fall; this spring, that number climbed to 52%, with 31 students achieving on, or above, grade level scores. In reading, 23%, or 14 students, scored on, or above, grade level last fall, and this spring, 60%, or 36 students, tested at, or above, grade level. The percentage of students scoring below grade level dropped from 90% to 48% in math, and 77% to 40% in reading.
On the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, the percentage of students requiring intensive instruction dropped from 39.5% to 32.8% in phonics, and from 44.7% to 26.3% in reading comprehension, with students moving from the need for intensive instruction to requiring strategic intervention and to grade level performance.
In the State’s Smarter Balanced test, while the numbers of students requiring intensive instruction and strategic intervention remained roughly the same in the math assessment, with approximately two-thirds of the students needing additional assistance, in reading, the number of students requiring intensive instruction decreased from 36.4% to 30.3%, and those requiring strategic intervention decreased from 30.3% to 21.2%, with the number of students testing on, or above, grade level rising from one third to nearly half of the school’s students.
Principal Merendina attributes this progress to the staff and their team effort, praising the accomplishments of students and instructors in spite of challenges the school faced last year with staff resignations and medical leaves of absences. She intends to introduce interim assessments in the middle grades next year to enhance monitoring of student needs.
In addition to a full-time special education teacher, a part-time speech and language teacher, and six paraprofessionals assigned to students with special education needs, the school’s Special Education Director also serves as the Strategic Research Based Intervention instructor, working with students whose test scores and other criteria indicate the need for additional assistance. Although these most recent test scores show that approximately half of the students are still performing below grade-level in reading and in math, it appears that the school is on the right path.