Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Nevada School Board Examines SAT Scores

Scores for the Nevada District on the Stanford Achievement Test show the district in a favorable light when compared to surrounding districts.

Rick McAffee, Nevada superintendent, presented the district's SAT results to the Nevada School Board Thursday, Jan. 20.

Fifth graders scored in the 51st percentile, while those in the seventh grade hit the 61st percentile. The 10th graders, McAffee said, failed to take the test seriously and wound up averaging in the 44th percentile.

Nevada's results were compared to those of McNeil, Magnolia, Prescott, Blevins Emmet, Fouke, Gurdon, Hope, Lewisville, Spring Hill, Stephens and Waldo.

Prescott's fifth and 10th graders did better than Nevada's, but none of these schools compared to the seventh grade of Nevada.

McNeil's sophomore class scored in the 25th percentile, while its fifth graders were a percentile back in 24th.

For 10th grade classes, the best in the region was Blevins with a 51st percentile result. The best fifth grade class was Prescott's, finishing in the 56th percentile.

Within Nevada County, Emmet finished third in all grade levels tested.

For the fifth grade Prescott ranked best, followed by Nevada and Emmet.

Seventh grade results were Nevada, Prescott and Emmet, while 10th grade findings showed the finish to be Prescott, Nevada and Emmet.

McAffee said the 10th grade students at Nevada simply didn't put out any effort, nor did they take the test seriously.

The seventh grade did great, he told the board. In fact, this group did better than the state average of scoring in the 49th percentile.

All students will be informed of these results, he added, with graphs being developed to show where they have come from and where they are now.

McAffee plans on charting where the fifth, seventh and 10th grade students scored in previous tests and how these results have changed over time.

The SAT test, he said, covers the basic battery for math, language arts, reading, reading comprehension and spelling, depending on the grade level involved.

The test isn't fair, McAffee told the board. It tests this year's students in grades five, seven and 10 against different students who were in the same grades last year. Last year's students are now in grades six, eight and 11.

"It doesn't show how the same students are progressing through school," he told the board.

In other business, Maintenance and Transportation Director Jim Cross said the building had been tested by the Arkansas Department of Health. The ADH tested all equipment in the physical plant and the building itself.

Overall the results were good, but the ADH did recommend pumping more fresh air inside the structure to reduce the level of carbon dioxide in the air.

Cross said there is no danger with the CO2 levels as they are, but they are too high for the ADH.

Representatives from the ADH suggested the district turn on fans periodically during the day to provide an influx of fresh air.

Cross and McAffee said the reason for this problem is the building is "too tight," meaning the doors and windows have no air leaks.

This is the way the building was designed, McAffee said. It was built to be energy efficient. "There's no cause for concern, the CO2 levels aren't dangerous. We just need to move the air around in some areas more."

Cross, in his report, said work in underway on the baseball field, along with the field used for Little League and girls softball.

Nevada High School Principal Blake Epperson told the board homecoming will be held Feb. 4 as the Blue Jays tangle with Emerson.

He lauded Cross and the maintenance crew for the work done on the baseball fields, and said six members of the band made All Region.

Both NHS and NES are working on curriculum mapping under state mandate. This is being done for math, science and language arts courses.

Epperson said seniors will take what amounts to an exit test and if they don't pass it, they will have to retest, and possibly take the course over.

This would be done even if the student(s) in question passed the course.

McAffee said the results of these tests will be formulated into report cards for the district, and then be sent to the parents at the end of the school year.

Curriculum mapping, he told the board, is making textbook selection at hot topic for districts across the state.

This is because no single textbook can provide all the data required by the Arkansas Department of Education, and textbooks, McAffee said, are expensive.

In his report, McAffee said the district will recognize Prisoner of War Remembrance Day on April 9. This holiday was enacted by the Arkansas Legislature in its last session.

A certificate of deposit matured for the district recently and was cashed in, McAffee said. This was done to hold the money until the interest rates go up and the district can make more on the CD.

He said Alan Greenspan, who sets federal interest rates, has predicted the rates will go up in early February. When they do, McAffee told the board, the district will get bids from four banks to see which offers the best interest on a six-month CD.

In a short personnel meeting, the board renewed McAffee's contract for another year, giving him a three-year deal overall.

Discussing results of the 1997-98 audit, McAffee said the auditors' findings were clean for the most part, though one problem did turn up.

It seems when the district changed from its payroll software and went on the APSCN program some employees with 10 month contracts were underpaid.

The district went through all of its records for the 10-month employees and found three who had been underpaid. This was corrected immediately.