The Jefferson City Public School District is using new computer software to track student growth as part of new teacher evaluations.
The district purchased the Schoolnet software for a $66,325 annual fee because curriculum can be uploaded to it and it's a streamlined way for teachers to monitor a student's academic achievement, said Dawn Berhorst, assistant to the superintendent for student information, planning and assessment.
Scores for several benchmark exams including the Missouri Assessment Program are uploaded for every student, and a history of the student's standardized test achievement will follow the individual throughout their elementary and secondary school career, she said.
Gretchen Guitard, assistant to the superintendent for curriculum, said it helps provide a more accurate look at student achievement aside from just looking at MAP test scores.
Teachers can also upload their own pre-assessments and post-assessments. This year, districts are required by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to track student growth, and in the 2016-17 school year, teachers will be evaluated on it, she said.
All teachers who have a roster of students will be evaluated this way, the only exceptions at JCPS are counselors and librarians who don't teach a typical class.
Performance classes like band or choir are the most difficult to measure growth with a paper-and-pencil-type assessment because, typically, the final performance is like the final exam. All of those classes now have a more traditional test to track measurable growth, Berhorst said.
The district is also spending an extra $20,000 per year for additional content, including pre-designed assessments so teachers don't have to make theirs from scratch.
"This is a tool, not a fix or solution," Berhorst said. "The district provided a support tool to help teachers efficiently look at data so they can spend time on different things."
The software also has a feature that allows teachers to upload their lesson plans, but that will be part of the next phase of teacher training, she said.
Before having this software, Guitard said, the district didn't have one system that housed all its student data. Teachers would have to go into multiple data entry sites to look at MAP scores or the state curriculum.
Teachers could perform paper-and-pencil assessments, but now the tests are taken online and the data on how a student performed is immediately available. The district can then track achievement and input it into a teacher's evaluation, she said.
Berhorst said teachers haven't been formally evaluated on student growth the way it will be mandated for the next academic school year.