Kristin Vesely

11-26-14
Assessment Reflection
In todays school system, much attention is paid to data. Schools are looking
over data pertaining to state assessments, district writing assessments and even the
feelings students have about safety in school. Another set of data I recently looked
at was data regarding basic school data. This survey looked at numbers from
enrollment, to student attendance, teacher attendance, to parent volunteers to
disciplinary referrals. I then took the numbers that I found for Patrick Henry Middle
School, the second biggest middle school in the state of South Dakota and compared
it to another middle school from a much smaller part of the state. What I found
surprised me.
Patrick Henry has an enrollment of 1,161 students sixth through eighth
grade. School Two has an enrollment of 103 students sixth through eighth grade
making Patrick Henry more than ten times bigger. What surprised me, and
probably should not have, was the availability of the data. When looking for Patrick
Henrys data, I found almost all of it readily available online. When looking for data
from School Two, I found nothing online. In fact, the reason I found any of the
information I was looking for was because I knew people at the school who could
give me the numbers I requested.
Once I finally had what I needed, I was able to compare a large, transparent
school to a small school. In the end, Im not sure was a fair comparison. With
Patrick Henry having such a larger population of students, I think the numbers were
a bit skewed. For example, Patrick Henry has 162 students labeled as gifted. School

Two has none. The attendance rate for both schools was about the same, Patrick
with a 95% attendance as compared to School Two having 98% attendance rate.
Both of these particular categories can hold weight when looking at
assessment numbers. There is research in particular that will claim that school
assessment numbers are better when the attendance of the school is higher.
However, when you are comparing schools with the population differences as vast
as these two, I begin to question the validity of the data. Only because a higher
population allows more kids to miss without bringing your overall number down.
Many schools have tried to motivate kids to come to school by directly correlating
their grades to school attendance. However, these drastic measures do little to fix
attendance problems (Reeves, 2008).
This particular project serves the Researcher role of the USF Conceptual
Framework Model. In order to look objectively at both schools, I had to get the
numbers from both schools, sit and research them. The purpose of a this type of
data comparison is to look at your school as a whole; students, teachers and
administrators and look at what could be directly affecting your school assessment
numbers. Once you have all the data, as an administrator, you could sit down at a
school improvement meeting with the information and look at ways to possibly
increase test scores.
According to the 2011 ELCC Building-Level Standards, this project falls
under Standard 1.2. Both the building-level standard and the researcher role work
well together here. As an administrator, you are trying to improve the building

around you. That includes the students, the school and the staff. By looking at this
information, you are taking a step in the right direction.

References
Reeves, D. B. (2008). Leading to change/improving student attendance. Reshaping High
Schools, 65(8), 1-2.
Wiles, J. (2009). Leading curriculum development. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press.