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Photo by Savannah Schmidt.
A fifth grade student in Stacey Rush’s class practices math exercises at Greystone Elementary on Nov. 5. Students are free to use objects, games and paper sheets for math practice.
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Photos by Savannah Schmidt.
Stacey Rush works with her fifth grade class on math exercises at Greystone Elementary. Greystone’s students increased their math proficiency by 3.5 percentage points over last year.
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Photos by Savannah Schmidt.
Greystone Elementary fifth graders practice math exercises. Greystone has the highest math proficiency of any Hoover elementary school, with 80.7% of students proficient in math.
Students in Hoover City Schools for the third year in a row made steady, incremental progress on state English, math and science assessments.
Districtwide results from tests taken this past spring by students in grades 3-8 showed the percentage of Hoover students deemed proficient in science rising 3.8 percentage points, while proficiency rates for English language arts rose 3.2 percentage points and for math climbed 1.7 percentage points.
To give better context, the percentage of those students deemed proficient in science rose from 64% to 67.8%. The percentage of students deemed proficient in English language arts climbed from 75.8% to 79%, and the percentage deemed proficient in math rose from 60.4% to 62.1%, according to state Department of Education data analyzed and shared by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama.
“We’re really excited to be able to celebrate that with our teachers,” said Chris Robbins, the Hoover school district’s chief learning officer. “I think it just shows the hard work of not only the students to grow, but our teachers, the way that they’ve been very strategic with their instruction, but then also the leadership of the principals.
Our hat’s off to those on the ground that are making things happen.”
Since 2021, the school district’s strategy for improving student achievement has been to continue to do the things that are making the greatest impact, Robbins said. Those include: 1) Providing high-quality instruction for all students; 2) putting in systems of support and training for teachers; and 3) maintaining high expectations for growth for all students in all schools.
“We feel like we’ve had a laser focus on those three areas,” he said. “We have to be very intentional and continue to look for better ways to reach and intervene with kids. … We’re looking for results. We’re looking for positive gains, and we’re looking to be sure that the resources we use are ones that are going to benefit students the most.”
The Hoover school board also agreed this past spring to hire 25 more academic interventionists to help struggling students make academic gains, bringing the total number of interventionists to 60. The investment in interventionists appears to be paying off, Robbins said.
“The feedback we’ve received from our schools and from our principals is that our interventionists have been a huge support for our students and have really resulted in students receiving real-time support in areas that they may be weaker in or may have gaps in,” he said.
The district added 14 more special education teachers this year as well to help further improve performance.
DEMOGRAPHIC GROUPS
The test score gains varied by demographic groups.
White students saw their performance increase 1.1 percentage points in math, 1.6 percentage points in English language arts and 3.2 percentage points in science. Black students saw their performance increase 2 percentage points in math, 7.1 percentage points in English language arts and 4 percentage points in science.
Hispanic students saw their performance climb 0.3 percentage points in math, 06 percentage points in English language arts and 2.4 percentage points in science. Economically disadvantaged students saw their performance climb 7.6 percentage points in math, 9.3 percentage points in English language arts and 9.2 percentage points in science.
There is still an achievement gap between Black and white students, but it narrowed slightly in math and science and by 5.5 percentage points in English language arts, compared to the year before.
Most Hoover schools showed gains in their scores, but some had double-digit increases in proficiency.
SUCCESS STORIES
Students at Green Valley Elementary saw their science proficiency increase by 20.2 percentage points in one year, while English language arts proficiency increased 16 percentage points and math proficiency was up by 6.1 percentage points.
Students at Greystone Elementary saw their science proficiency rise 17.8 percentage points, English language arts proficiency climb 9.4 percentage points and math proficiency rise 3.5 percentage points.
Green Valley Principal Amy Burbank said she’s very proud of the students and teachers at Green Valley.
“They have worked really hard,” she said. “We have seen a steady increase in our students’ successes and performance on lots of different types of assessments over the last years.”
District officials have done a good job of providing tier-one professional development related to how students can learn best and what strategies can be used to improve student performance, Burbank said. There has been a concerted effort to make sure there are high expectations for all students, she said.
There is a lot of collaboration among teachers in the same grade and collaboration between classroom teachers and instructional coaches, Burbank said.
“We’re constantly using data to determine the effectiveness of our practices and what next steps or reteaching needs to happen for students who are not successful,” she said.
In science, the school uses the Alabama Math and Science Technology Initiative curriculum, but teachers also have been focusing more on nonfiction reading that sometimes involves science, Burbank said.
“I don’t know that we knew that science was going to have that much of an increase, but I’m not surprised,” she said. “It’s almost like they’re getting two different opportunities to learn about science per day.”
Cherry Johnson, a literacy coach at Greystone Elementary, said school staff look hard at data at the beginning, middle and end of the school year.
Last year, teachers determined that vocabulary was a serious weakness in their students and decided to focus on vocabulary across the board — in English, science and math, she said. They spent more time studying the origins and roots of words, which helped them understand the meaning better, she said.
This was particularly useful in science, but also English and math, too, Johnson said.
Principal Stacey Stocks also built time into teachers’ schedules to allow all the teachers in a given grade level time to get together for planning and professional development, Johnson said. Because teachers’ breaks typically are short, substitute teachers were brought in to give teachers more time to collaborate, she said.
The focus on vocabulary is continuing this year and is being extended more to specialty teachers, such as the media specialist, art teacher, enrichment teachers and English language instructors, Johnson said.
For example, the art teacher is helping students create geometry bulletin boards that focus on geometry vocabulary, said Samantha Seymour, the math coach at Greystone. Students are getting art and math at the same time, which is “more bang for the buck,” she said.
Students in Hoover City Schools ranked eighth overall in the state in performance on the Alabama Comprehensive Assessment Program. Robbins said Hoover officials are always looking for ways to improve but are pleased with how the system stacked up against others.
“It’s hard to find a comparison to Hoover. We’re very different than most all other school districts,” Robbins said. “There’s not a school district our size with our demographics that is performing at the level we’re performing. Those with higher percent proficient are very different than us. I don’t know a comparable school district. We’ve got unique demographics as it relates to other school districts in this area and even statewide, but we’re still performing at a very high level.”
