Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

ACT Scores Reflect Problems

By JOHN MILLER

There is a direct correlation between the ACT scores and behavior problems at Nevada High School.

According to NHS Principal Hardy Herrington, when the discipline problems go down, the ACT scores go up.

The district, he said, instituted a new discipline policy two years ago. This program allows the students to be disciplined without losing any of their self-respect or dignity.

Teachers are in charge of the classroom and take control of routine infractions. Herrington said the teachers went through workshops based on teamwork for the new program.

In addition, the district rewrote several policies to give the teachers more leeway with keeping control of their classrooms, letting the students know of these changes.

Herrington said the students also know when they do something to get sent to him, they have made a major mistake.

Interestingly enough, he said, the students appreciate the tougher discipline rules. In fact, the student body voted for them.

Herrington said getting the students involved gave them power over their own lives while at school.

The end result over the past four years has been a 45 percent reduction in discipline problems.

For the academic year 1993-94, there were 1,200 reports of problems with students. This rose to nearly 1,400 for the 1994-95 year.

But, when the new program was instituted two years ago, the decline began. For 1995-96, the discipline problems plummeted to less than 1,000, and for the 1996-97 year, dropped to 764 overall.

On the other hand, during the same time period, the ACT scores reflected the discipline situation.

In the 1993-94 year, the college bound ACT scores were 18.6, while the career bound students scores were 13. This was also the year the discipline problems saw 1,199 students in trouble.

The 1994-95 year was a bit of a fluke as the test scores rose, though there were 1,397 discipline reports. The college bound scores were 18.8, while the career scores rose to 15.3.

When the new discipline program was put in place two years ago, though, the changes were drastic. The college bound test scores rose to 19.4 for the 1995-96 school year, while those planning to start their careers had ACT scores averaging 16.8.

By the end of last year, the scores had climbed even higher on both sides, with the gap between college bound and career bound students narrowing.

The college bound students had an average ACT score of 20.3, while the career scores were 18.6, showing an increase of 5.6 points per test over the four year period.

Herrington said there was only one student last April who scored less than 19.0 on the ACT. This student took the test again, but the results were not on hand by the time this article was compiled.

Another reason Nevada High has seen these drastic increases in ACT scores could be its participation in the High Schools That Work program.

This program is sponsored by the Southern Regional Education Board, with the aim to make high performance count for all high school students.

The primary goal is to improve the communication, mathematics, science, technical and problem-solving skills of the career bound students.

The program works to challenge students to put out more effort in their studies as they prepare for the future.

Schools in the program help improve student performance by blending higher level academic studies and challenging the career classes. Each participating school has a five-year goal for helping the career bound students.