Dear Parent, Guardian, or Community Member:
Ovid-Elsie Area Schools is taking a proactive approach this school year as we work to communicate with parents and the community recent changes to your school building’s Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and report card grade.
Each year, Michigan public school students in grades 3 through 9 are required to take the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP), and 11th graders are required to take the Michigan Merit Exam (MME). The state of Michigan uses the scores from these tests to calculate Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), a measure of year-to-year student achievement on the MEAP and the MME.
Last fall, the Michigan State Board of Education approved new MEAP and MME “cut scores.” Cut scores separate test takers into various proficiency categories such as advanced, proficient, partially proficient and not proficient. These new cut scores are higher and “raise the bar” for our students.
As anticipated, MEAP and MME scores in this inaugural year of the new, higher cut scores were lower for most students. Consequently, district/building report card grades are also lower. We are confident this change is temporary, due to ongoing school improvement efforts and student support.
When looking at AYP and report card grades, it’s important to note that our district uses several other measures throughout the year to ensure that students are making academic progress.
We will be examining our curriculum to respond to the state’s higher achievement expectations. In addition, our staff will focus our professional development efforts on enhancing our abilities to rise to the challenge presented to these recent changes.
We would like to congratulate our staff, students and schools. Once again, Ovid-Elsie High School has been awarded Reward School status indicating that they our outperforming their peers statewide. Additionally, Leonard Elementary School is ranked in the 85th percentile, which means they are outperforming 85% of their peers. E.E. Knight Elementary School and the Middle School are also performing well. The color-coded report card status is not indicative of our students’ performance but rather psychometric algorithms that cannot tell the whole story.
We maintain high standards for our schools, and our standardized test scores and letter grades are consistently among the highest in the state. We anticipate this trend will continue even with the changes in the grading system.
For more information, contact Kris Kirby at kris.kirby@ovidelsie.org or visit mischooldata.org.
Sincerely,
Dr. Ryan L. Cunningham, Superintendent
Ovid-Elsie Area Schools
