School district reacts to annual assessments

Crook County School District (CCSD) continues to fare well in meeting the state's performance expectations, including across-the-board proficiency results assessment that are higher than the average for the state in this year's WY-TOPP assessments.

At the elementary and middle school level, Sundance Elementary and Moorcroft Elementary are both exceeding expectations this year, according to the latest Wyoming Department of Education data. Hulett School is meeting expectations.

All three schools are meeting the target growth level.

At the high school level, the Hulett School is meeting expectations and the Sundance and Moorcroft High Schools are partially meeting expectations.

Good results, but there's always room for improvement when you're in the business of educating kids, says Superintendent Mark Broderson.

"We are going in the right direction, but any time you have a school that's 'partially meeting', you have to look into the reasons.

There are different areas that are measured and they're weighted differently, so we're addressing right now the areas that we need to work on to improve," says Broderson.

"We will have an improvement plan that is due for those two buildings on November 1 and they've already started to begin that process."

School performance is measured according to both the Wyoming Accountability in Education Act and the federal Every Student Succeeds Act and is based on a combination of indicators including, but not limited to, WY-TOPP scores.

The Wyoming Test of Proficiency and Progress (WY-TOPP) is an assessment on content and performance standards that was designed to meet federal requirements. It is an end-of-year assessment that measures how much students have learned.

Individual results do not affect a student's grades, but are used to evaluate a school's strengths and weaknesses.

Overall, 56.6% of students between grades three and ten were proficient in English language arts, above the statewide average of 53.6%.

In individual grades, 57.1% of third graders, 58.7% of fourth graders, 61.7% of fifth graders, 64.8% of sixth graders, 54.9% of seventh graders, 47.5% of eighth graders, 53.1% of ninth graders and 53.9% of tenth graders were proficient.

In math, the overall percentage of students who tested as proficient was 58.4%, significantly higher than the state average of 49%.

In individual grade, 70.2% of third graders, 64.1% of fourth graders, 78.7% of fifth graders (top score among the state's medium-sized districts), 67% of sixth graders, 52% of seventh graders, 41.8% of eighth graders, 46.3% of ninth graders and 46.1% of tenth graders were proficient.

CCSD was recognized by the state as being among the districts with consistently high performance in math, remaining above the state average annually since 2019.

In science, 58.2% of students tested were proficient, also above the overall state average of 48.3%.

At individual grade levels, 70.7% of fourth graders (top score among the state's medium-sized districts), 52.5% of eighth graders and 50.6% of tenth graders achieved proficient scores.

The Wyoming Department of Education recognized Moorcroft K-8 for having one of the highest proficiency gains between 2022 and 2023 in the state, including an increase of proficiency in math of 19.4% between 2022 and 2023 (to 71.5%) and of 37.4% in science between the two years (to 82.8% proficient).

Speaking to the areas where the county topped the list, Broderson says, "When you see Crook County at the top of the list – and that's talking about Sundance, Moorcroft and Hulett, it's across the board – that's something to be proud of, for sure."

Looking at the lower end of the scores, the district will continue to concentrate on its junior high level proficiency, says Broderson.

Overall, he says, "I'm fairly proud of all those buildings and what they do. We're in the business where we're always trying to do things better and we'll continue to do that. We'll look at our results and we'll look at what we're doing and we'll try to improve on that."