Sisters schools get an excellent report card

Sisters schools scored well overall on the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) report cards, which were mailed to students' homes last week.

Sisters Elementary School scored a 92.5 percent for a "Level 5" (out of 5) rating, earning a perfect score in academic achievement.

Sisters High School scored an 87.0 percent overall, also earning a "Level 5" rating. Sisters Middle School came at 76.7 percent to gain a "Level 4" rating. The middle school continues to be challenged by low test scores and growth rates among students with disabilities.

Since the 2011-2012 school year, the ODE has put together an annual report card for each public school in the state. Rather than simply using the assessment testing data, this "report card" is calculated on a weighted point system. The point system includes up to 25 points for academic achievement, up to 50 points for academic growth and up to 25 points for subgroup growth. The system obviously rewards growth in academic achievement over the absolute student test score.

Also, when a school scores toward, the top of the rating scale, demonstrating substantial growth becomes much more challenging because there is not much space to grow. SES, for example, with 100 percent in one category and 90 percent in the two other categories will have a difficult time showing significant growth.

There is far too much detailed data on each report card to be dealt with in this story, but it might be informative to do some local comparisons at the 11th-grade district level for Central Oregon.

The class size average in Sisters K-3 is 23 and 24 for grades 4-5. Bend K-3 is 24 and 30 for grades 4-5. Redmond K-3 averaged 25 and 28 for grades 4-5.

Spending per pupil in Sisters was $10,724 compared to the state average of $10,256. Bend spent $9,078 per student, and Redmond spent $9,142.

In reading, more than 95 percent of Sisters students met or exceeded the state standards. That was 10 percent above the state average, and 6 and 8 percent higher than Bend or Redmond, respectively.

In math, Sisters came in at 81 percent, exceeding the state average by 12 percent, ahead of Bend by 8 percent and Redmond by 12 percent.

In writing, Sisters scored 67 percent met or exceeded the standard. This was 9 percent above the state average, 3 percent higher than Bend, and 25 percent above Redmond.

In science Sisters scored 77 percent, 18 percent above the state average, 13 percent above Bend and 14 percent above Redmond.

In preparing students for college, Sisters came in at 89 percent, which was 12 percent above the state average, 7 percent better than Bend and 8 percent better than Redmond.

For the critical factor of graduation rate, Sisters posted an 88 percent, exceeding the state standard by 22 percent, Bend by 12 percent, and Redmond by

46 percent.

The final measure was continuing education. This category counted those students going on to a community college or four-year institution within 16 months of graduation. In this category, Sisters earned a 72 percent, besting the state average by 24 percent, Bend by 14 percent and Redmond by 31 percent.