Riverview High School, Verner Miss State PSSA Targets in Reading

Riverview High School students and Verner students falling in the economically disadvantaged subgroup have failed to meet state goals on the reading portion of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment test.

District administrators presented a brief overview of the district's status based on preliminary PSSA scores at the school board study session Monday night.

The district as a whole made adequate yearly progress—AYP.

This year's state target was to have at least 81 percent of district students proficient in reading and 78 percent proficient in math—the goals are 11 percent higher than last year's in both categories.

The targets are set to jump to 91 percent in reading and 89 percent in math in 2013.

Tenth Street Elementary School met all targets, according to school officials. However, students at Riverview High School and those in the economically disadvantaged subgroup at Verner didn't meet reading targets.

Last year, the high school .

Percentages for this year's scores were not released by district officials on Monday, but administrators plan to discuss the results with teachers within the next week and hold a public meeting in the next month or so to go over the results more in depth.

Lynn Black, the district's director of student achievement, said it's critical for teachers and staff to ensure that the district meets AYP in all categories in 2013. If the same subgroup at Verner doesn't meet state targets, parents then would be given the option of sending their students to Tenth Street, per state provisions.

"There's a lot of discussion we need to have around that," she said. "We're taking steps to ensure that doesn't occur, but we need to be prepared."

Black said the subgroup at Verner "has not historically done well," and it was harder this year because of the 11 percent jump. However, she said it's not a "very large" number of students included in that subgroup.

"We got caught in that gap," she said.

Superintendent Peggy DiNinno said district officials must examine this year's data as well as data from previous years to determine how they're going to fix the problem.

DiNinno said teachers are going to work on data analysis during in-service days.

"We have different needs at different buildings," she said. "So we need to acknowledge that and look at each child as a person—not a PSSA score—and look at the data to see what we can do to help that child."

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