Ahead of this week's public release of state assessment results, Scott Co. elementary principal vows, "I won't allow us ever to be defined by state test scores," and explains school's efforts and challenges

News Graphic, Georgetown, Sept. 23, 2017

Principal: Southern’s students ‘won’t be defined’ by state test scores
By Dan Adkins

Southern Elementary School Principal Bryan Blankenship was quietly defiant Thursday night when confronted with student test scores that trailed the nation and most other county schools.

“I won’t allow us ever to be defined by state test scores. We try hard, and we try to prepare our kids,” Blankenship told the Scott County Board of Education.

“We’ll be defined by how we care about kids,” he said.

Blankenship’s comments came just minutes after Assistant Superintendent of Student Learning Maurice Chappell outlined how Scott County’s kindergarten through 9th graders performed on MAP tests given in late August.

The tests provide teachers and administrators with a snapshot of where each student stands academically at the start of the year in math and reading. Late in the year, a second MAP test will gauge how each student has advanced.

The results Chappell presented showed one elementary school — Western Elementary — performing better than the national norm at all grade levels. Northern Elementary also outscored the national norm, with the exception of its first-graders’ math performance.

Southern, however, recorded no grade level where average student scores met or exceeded the national norm.

For instance, the school’s fourth-graders recorded a score of 197.8 in math last month. That was better than Garth Elementary’s 196.5, but lower than the national norm of 201.9.

Western’s fourth-graders scored 207.5 and Northern’s scored 205.4. The other elementary schools also scored below the national norm for fourth-grade math.

For the most part, the county’s middle-school students performed well. Scott County Middle’s students outperformed the national norm at all levels in both math and reading; Royal Spring Middle’s exceeded the nation in seventh- and eighth-grade math and all three grades in reading; and Georgetown Middle trailed the national norm in math in all three grades and in sixth- and seventh-grade reading, but surpassed the norm in eight-grade reading.

At Thursday’s meeting, the board also heard from Western Elementary Principal Brent Allen and Eastern Elementary Principal Corrie Kemper, who discussed professional development provided to their teachers over the summer.

Blankenship initially talked about tactics his teachers have undertaken, including an emphasis on developing Southern’s students’ writing skills as a means of articulate what they are learning.

“We’d like to increase the rigor, the level of expectation,” he said.

But Blankenship knew he needed to address the recent MAP scores and other student assessments.

In part, Blankenship said, Southern’s scores mirror the outside stresses with which its students must contend, lower-income families who live in some of Georgetown’s more crime-plagued neighborhoods.

“Our kids at Southern, they come with stresses. They come with stresses in life and sometimes at home,” Blankenship said.

“We want to create a culture [among students] of togetherness and team-building, but mostly, for me, it’s about creating an atmosphere where kids feel like they belong,” he said.

“Our kids may come in with dirty clothes. What are we going to do? We’ll wash them.

“They may come in with a dirty face. We’ll wash their face.

“They may not have school supplies. We will give them school supplies.

“They may need compassion. We’ll give them compassion,” Blankenship said.

But Blankenship also assured the board that his teachers and staff will nurture Southern’s students toward improving their academic performances.

“We’ll raise the expectations for them, too. We would do them no favor if we did not,” Blankenship said.

“But when they come in and they need love, guess what we’re going to do. We’ll give them love,” he said.