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St. Vincent de Paul
School is a mission driven school, not a test driven school. We
exist to pass on our Catholic faith and traditions, but a
quality academic program is expected. We are pleased with our
school’s ITBS scores, and we share them with our families each
year in the fall.
As you review our
school’s data, please keep the following ideas in mind:
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We are
testing a very small population; therefore, we need to
be sensitive to our students when interpreting the data.
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Some
schools, public and private, do not test all of their
students. We test all of our students, including those
with any level of special needs (about 18% of our
student population).
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Please keep
in mind that this is just one test on one particular day
which can give a piece of information on a child’s
academic progress.
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These
scores should not be used to compare our school with
local public schools or with other Catholic schools in
the Archdiocese. Catholic schools are not driven by
tests; we are driven by our missions.
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Why are we
giving the tests? We are using the information as
another tool to assess individual student growth and
progress as well as to indicate possible strengths and
weaknesses of our programs.
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This was
our first year to include 2nd and 8th graders in the
testing. We wanted the additional data as we continue to
look at improving our curriculum and instruction. We
will be taking a close look at the 2nd grade program and
the test results.
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Our goal is
to prepare our students for Catholic high schools, and
the reports we receive from the Catholic high schools
indicate that our students are prepared academically,
spiritually, and socially.
An
explanation of the types of scores displayed in the charts:
School
Scores
The scores listed in the chart on the next page are
National School Norms. School norms compare our scores
as a whole school to other schools across the country.
This is how to interpret school norms: A National School
Norm of 80 for the third grade means that our third
grade class as a whole did as well as or better than
about 80% of the other third grade classes nationally.
Grade Level Equivalences
In addition to the School Scores, we want to share
another way to interpret our scores. We have included
the grade level equivalences for each grade level. This
is how to interpret grade level equivalences: A grade
level equivalence of 4.9 for our 3rd grade doesn’t mean
that they are working at a grade level of 4.9, but that
they did as well as a student in 4th grade, 9th month
would have done on this level of test.
An
explanation of the group longitudinal display:
The line
graphs so the academic growth of last year’s 8th grade
class over the past five years (using grade level
equivalences). You can see how the achievement growth
rate increased over the years, from being one to two
years above the national average at grade 4 to being
three to four years above the average achievement growth
at grade 8.
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