ISTEP test scores don’t tell the entire story of the North Judson-San Pierre School Corporation. Superintendent Dr. Annette Zupin says unfortunately though they provide a side-by-side comparison of school districts.
“It’s frustrating. I don’t like that, but that’s reality. So we have to do better on the test. It disheartens me that we have legislators and people who think that the test score defines a school and a student. I’m totally against that philosophically. However that’s the way it is now, so we’ve got to do better on the test.”
Zupin says N.J.-S.P. is taking steps to do just that.
“Our school improvement plan addresses that. We are changing the amount of time that we spend on math, in particular. We’re devoting more time to that, so we can’t ignore it.”
Zupin adds standardized test scores are just part of the overall letter grade for schools and corporations. The graduation rate and number of dual credits students receive are also factors.
“Our test scores were not very good last year, and yet we did not fail. I attribute that to those multiple measures. So all the work that went into helping students graduate, and those dual credits, that helped us. You can’t dismiss those good things that we do. It just doesn’t have the same weight as the test.”
Zupin says N.J.-S.P. offers students individual attention and gives them access to both remediation and high ability classes. Additionally dual credit courses, for which students receive both high school and college credits, are taught by teachers. N.J.-S.P. has also offered online credit recovery for the past 10 years.
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