Previous school year ends with high averages

Zack Becker, Opinion Editor
September 9, 2009
Filed under News

The Belton School District annually strives to meet or surpass state standards. Sometimes they get close. And sometimes they fall short. But from the 08-09 school year, many statistics saw fantastic improvements.

Before every school year, the school board meets to talk about setting up building goals. These are simply goals that each school makes up and plans to reach by the end of the year.

One item that Principal Virgil Poisal said he felt most proud of was the increase in ACT scores over the prior year. In the 07-08 year, the average of ACT scores was a 20.5. Last year the average was raised 1.1 points, to a new average of 21.6.

“It is just an amazing victory,” Poisal said.

The end-of-course test scores were another new accomplishment. These scores cannot be compared to any previous years’ scores, though, because last year was the first year that BHS used end-of-course testing. Up until then, the school district had been using Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) tests.

Many subjects not only met state standards, but exceeded them as well. A couple of these subjects included English and Biology scores.

Biology Teacher Crystal Alexander said she was amazed at how the students worked so hard.

“I was very proud of all the hard work of the students, preparing for the end-of-course tests,” Alexander said, “and their hard work paid off in their test scores.”

Another building goal that was surpassed in the 08-09 year was the high school’s attendance rates. The goal is always set for 95 percent, but it has never been met. Most of the recent years, attendance has been around 93 percent. But last year, the school’s average attendance rate was 95.4 percent.

The last biggest improvement seen was the increase in the persistence to graduate. This number is calculated by taking the number of students in a freshman class and seeing how many, of those, graduate four years later. It comes out as a percentage and last year’s was 89.9 percent. The previous year’s number was 87.9 percent.

There are many people that Poisal attributes these accomplishments to.

“It was our goal,” Poisal said. “It goes to the students, the parents, and teachers, and all of our staff.”

Poisal is looking ahead to the new school year. He said he has high hopes for this year.

“We will just continue to improve,” Poisal said. “We will give our best efforts.”