By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
Tucker County High School Principal Alex Cork updated the Tucker County School Board on the progress of the high school over this school year at the board’s regular meeting
“I know the superintendent has already kind of let you know that I’m embargoed from giving exact numbers, but academically this year with the university assessment we had a very good year,” Cork said. “I want to commend our students on that. That Junior Class is extremely bright and is a super proud point of our school and our county.”
Cork also commended his staff for their work over the past school year. “I want to commend our teachers as well because I talked to you earlier in the fall, we began PSAT testing every kid this year. Back in October, we did our 9th – 11th graders. One of things we are trying to develop with that is we’re trying to figure out where do we need to grow, where are we doing, do we regress, do we grow and so just the numbers from PSAT, on our 11th graders, to the SAT, I can’t give you exact numbers. But I can tell you, our mean score from the fall to the spring – from the PSAT in the fall to the SAT in the spring, those kids grew 45 points on the mean score, they grew 30 points in the ULA score and they grew 15 points on the Math score. Our teachers need to be commended on that number because that growth occurred from October all the way, just through, April. So that’s something we are really proud of. That number to me me is kind of the number we are looking at the most. You’re baseline is going to be different every year.”
Cork said that his students scored above average in all categories this year. “We were above the state average in every single category and so that’s something to be tremendously proud of. I don’t know if since using SAT, we’ve ever been able to say that. And we have never met a national average before, but we just missed the ULA by less than 10 points, I think it’s less than 10. So, we’re very proud of that.”
Cork said that the number of students that met standards has grown significantly in the last three years. “Just in the last three years, so the first year, going back to the 2021 assessment, we only had five students that year that met the national benchmark standards,” Cork said. “That number was expanded to eight, I think, last year. I believe, it is not quite finalized…but it looks like it’s going to be around 15 students. So, tripling that number over the past three years. We’re really, really proud of that. I’m so proud of those students. I’m so proud of those teachers. The data shows their hard work and I have to commend them on that.”
Cork did admit to the board that baselines change every year and the sophomore class has its challenges. “Baselines are different every year. I’m not going to stand around here and sugar coat it, our sophomores have a further distance to go. I will say I am proud of this; in that we’re not winging it this time. Whereas before, over the years we’re like, ‘Yeah, I think they’re a little bit behind.’ I’ve got the data to prove it.”
Cork said that TCHS was perhaps the only school in WV to do a mock digital SAT test. “So, what we did this year, we ran a mock SAT. Our freshmen and sophomores took the 2022 SAT, the exact one, digitally…we might be the only school in the state that did a mock digital run at it because its going digital next year. So our kids have already done that at some point, which is really good.”
Cork said the purpose of the mock SAT testing of freshmen and sophomores was to target where their skills can be developed. “When we look back at that data…we saw a lot of similarities between that 2022 assessment and this years. So what we look at that more, not so much in the averages, because you’ve got to remember that they’re taking a test meant for juniors as freshmen and sophomores, but what we saw was that the freshmen class’s is very good and the sophomores, they are within instructing distance of where we want them to be. But we are looking at it more for specific standards and questions. We are looking at it to try to figure out, ‘Ok, where are we teaching this skill or not teaching this skill. Where are we at.’”
Cork addressed the struggles the high school is having with students utilizing the supplemental resources. “We’re having the same challenges that, it kind of sounds like, the other schools are, with getting students to utilize this kind of supplemental resources effectively,” Cork said. “So, we’re going to take, and for those juniors this year, we ran an experimental run. Mr. Evans took a group of kids that were really wanting to really better themselves for their SATs. He took them and he just took their PSAT scores, identified where they were weak at in skills and standards with it and he just took and ran and taught them those skills.”
Cork said the experiment was a success. “Every single one of those kids, except for one, met the prominence and so that experiment went very well. And by the way the one that didn’t, they missed by the absolute skin of their teeth.”
Cork said that the data is going to be used to create pods for English and Math for next year to assist the students. “I know some other schools that are doing that,” Cork said. “We are going to take our juniors next year and we are going to use this SAT benchmarking data. We are going to take this data and create some pods for English and Math to where we are going to do that all year with our Juniors.”
Cork said that the school is utilizing Khan Academy for the freshmen and sophomore enrichment. “Here is what I will say about Khan, every kid who utilizes it will better themselves. There is no doubt about it. We’re trying to figure out ways to incentivize it…I’m continuing to explore all options to try to get them to take the Kahn Academy programming seriously because its effective, its driven off their PSAT information, if they just take it seriously.”
Kahn Academy, according to Cork is a free asset to the county and supplies the students with Credit Recovery, supplemental enrichment and synchs with the students PSAT scores.
The next regular meeting of the Tucker County School Board will be Monday, June 19 at 4:30 p.m. at the Tucker County Board of Education Office, 100 Education Lane, Parsons.