Sisters schools get good grades

Sisters schools brought home good grades for last year.

All three Sisters schools earned "outstanding" ratings on the Oregon Department of Education 2011-12 "report card." The report cards were issued on Thursday, October 11.

To view the report cards visit http://www.ode.state.or.us/data/reportcard/reports.aspx.

The report cards measure a school's academic achievement by the percentage of students meeting state standards and also provide comparisons with schools of similar demographics.

Sisters schools exceeded state standards in reading, math, writing and science. The latter two categories are not included in the rating.

Superintendent Jim Golden gave credit to Sisters' teaching staff for the high rating.

"We're doing a better job with a wider range of kids," he said. "And it needs to be noted that we've had four years of budget cuts. Our teachers have stepped up and said, 'we're not going to use that as an excuse.'"

Sisters matches or outperforms the state average and comparison schools in all measures except in third-grade math.

"We weren't happy with our third-grade math scores," Golden said. "We didn't spend enough time on math."

Sisters' policy for many years has been to focus heavily on reading skills in the early grades because research has shown clearly that reading ability is the strongest indicator of future academic success. But that emphasis may be shortchanging math skills.

"What we really need is more time," Golden said. "If I had a magic wand, I'd add more instructional days."

Sisters has some significant advantages when it comes to student performance. Thanks to local option funding, Sisters has been able to maintain comparatively small class sizes, especially in the elementary school, so that teachers can offer more individual attention and instruction.

However, Golden notes, Sisters has a larger proportion of disadvantaged students than it once did, and there is a larger population of students for whom English is a second language.

Again, he credits teachers with having greater skills in diagnosing areas where students are weak and accommodating a variety of different learning styles in the classroom.

Sisters schools, like all those in Oregon, will be facing more rigorous standards as Oregon adopts Common Core standards in 2014. Common Core sets consistent standards as to what students are expected to learn and do. Sisters is working on curriculum alignment to make sure students are prepared to meet more exacting standards.

"Our focus this year is aligning our curriculum K-12," Golden said. "We're looking for gaps so we can address those gaps."

So, while gaining some satisfaction from its "outstanding" rating, the Sisters School District must continue to focus on improving, with whatever resources continue to be

available.