The Putnam County Schools Assessment Committee is considering more changes to further improve the school system’s testing schedule.
Secondary Supervisor Bubba Winnningham said the committee has cleaned up the schedule by removing some testing not required by the state. Winningham said the committee wants feedback on those changes to see if more might be needed.
“Some of the talk that you know, you sometimes hear bubble up is the amount of benchmarks we do,” Winningham said. “Right now, we do three per year. and so that discussion has come up and come to the forefront to see if we want to reduce the benchmarks.”
Winningham said benchmark testing is used to gather data to see how a kid is performing, which helps teachers work with students to better prepare them for state testing. Winningham said the school system is trying to balance gathering data, but also preventing students from being test-fatigued.
“It’s a fine line, and so what we are trying to do as a district, though, an overall goal for us is to get to more real in-time data,” Winningham said. “Which means you know, we want teachers looking at student work throughout the week, and I think that gives us a good picture of where kids are without having to take a formal assessment.”
Winningham said teacher opinions on the proposed change will help make a decision. Winningham said the committee will look to review the proposed change within the coming months.
“We start planning scope and sequence for the next year in late spring,” Winningham said. “And so we want to get that done before we start planning for scope and sequence, and so that really is all the discussion was, and have a meeting in March with that committee.”