Published: Saturday, August 25, 2012 1:08 AM CDT

As the Yankton School District (YSD) begins the 2012-13 school year, district officials recently learned of the students’ test results for this past school year.

Eighty-one percent of YSD students came out at, or above, proficient in reading, compared with a 73 percent average for students across the state.

In addition, 83 percent of students in the district were at or above proficient in math, compared to a 74 percent average across South Dakota.

Kathy Wagner, director of Student Services at YSD, noted there is no Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) or Schools of Improvement results this year because South Dakota is moving away from No Child Left Behind (NCLB) standards to the Common Core standards.

“If we were still following the NCLB standards this year, we would not have any schools in improvement based on the test scores,” Wagner said.

She added Webster School was the only school in the district last year listed as a School of Improvement, but students there were able to boost their test scores from last year to this year.

Each school in YSD has a different Annual Measurable Objective (AMO) to meet for test scores, and students with disabilities in the elementary schools was the only subgroup that did not meet the AMO target.

Yankton Middle School also performed well. Students in the school exceeded the AMO in most all areas. However, they did not meet the AMO for students with disabilities in reading and math, and economically disadvantaged students in reading.

Yankton High School met all of its AMO targets with the exception of students with disabilities as well.

“We’ve been used to comparing one year’s test results to another year’s,” Wagner said. “Now, with the new standards coming, we look at each year as its own separate report.”

She added that officials in YSD are accustomed to waiting for state officials to tell them if they made the standards, or if some schools are on improvement — something that no longer happens with the new standards.

“Now we look at the percentages and say we did well in these certain areas, and could improve in other areas,” Wagner said. “We look at the standards and where kids in YSD are meeting those. If they are not meeting them, we find out why they aren’t and how we can help them.”

One of the things Wagner is most satisfied with in the report card is how much students’ test scores have improved during the past nine years.

Numbers increased 20 percent for students in reading proficiency, and 22 percent in math proficiency during that time     period.

“We were surprised, in a very good way, when we compared the scores from 2003 to 2012,” Wagner said. “It actually shows how much growth students have had in YSD over the last nine years and how much we have improved as a district.”

Officials in YSD are looking forward to moving away from NCLB and towards the new Common Core standards, already adopted by many other states.

The new standards allow schools to be shown as being successful if they show growth and students’ test scores show improvement over time.

Wagner added that even with the new standards, teachers and officials in the district want to continue to improve scores with students with disabilities and maintain the scores with other subgroups.

The new model will also only count students one time. The old model could have students counted more than once if they fell into multiple subgroups.

All of the changes will take place in 2014-15.

With the new standards, the state will publish a list of schools that will fall into one of three different categories:

A priority school will fall into the bottom 5 percent of schools in the state, and the state will try to help the school improve a great deal.

A focus school will fall into the middle of the pack, with the state helping the school.

A reward school will be where a majority of the schools are supposed to fall into, and is the highest rating a school can achieve.

The new guidelines will hold schools accountable based on student achievement, academic growth, attendance or college and career readiness, effective teachers and principals, and school climate.

“Holding schools accountable for their test results isn’t a bad thing,” Wagner said. “That said, we are very happy with this year’s report card results.”

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