2017 Department of Education Report Card
On Friday, December 15, our NMS Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education School Report Card Overview is going home to parents in the form of two handouts to our students with their First Trimester Report Cards.
I have attached here the letter as well as the overview from the DESE website, which will be coming home in paper-form.
The link here to the DESE will have the Overview as well as other links, parents may want to check out, such as comparisons to past years and other important information.
This year's Report Card does not say much to you for this year all middle and elementary schools have "No Level" for we all participated in the 2017 Next Generation MCAS tests. We have data we are using in terms of individual student's scores, but the overall Report Card does not give you much information about us and what we are doing.
As I have stated before, we are not where we want to be yet with our MCAS scores or our achievement overall. You will see improvements, but we are not going to be satisfied until every single student scores in the "meeting expectations" or "exceeding" expectations. This is our mission at the Nichols.
We understand that these are high expectations for ourselves and for our students, but we know that is what we work towards for our students.
If you have any questions about any of this, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Thank you.
As I have stated before, we are not where we want to be yet with our MCAS scores or our achievement overall. You will see improvements, but we are not going to be satisfied until every single student scores in the "meeting expectations" or "exceeding" expectations. This is our mission at the Nichols.
We understand that these are high expectations for ourselves and for our students, but we know that is what we work towards for our students.
If you have any questions about any of this, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Thank you.
December
15, 2017
Dear
Nichols Families:
The
John T. Nichols, Jr. Middle School is pleased to enclose an overview of our
school’s “report card.” Report cards answer important questions about a
school's overall performance and contain specific information about student enrollment
and teacher qualifications, student achievement, accountability, how a school
is performing relative to other schools in the district and the state, and the
progress made toward narrowing proficiency gaps for different groups of
students.
In
this report you will find the following important information about our school:
Student enrollment and teacher quality:
This section of the report card provides information about the students and
teachers in our school as compared to the district and the state.
Assessment results:
This section of the report shows how our students are performing on the
Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) as compared to the
district and the state.
School and district accountability
information: This section of the report contains three
important pieces of information:
- Accountability and Assistance Levels:
Schools and districts are placed into one of five accountability and
assistance levels (1-5), with the highest performing in Level 1 and lowest
performing in Level 5. Our school has No Level for this year, since we, as
a school, participated in 2017
Next Generation MCAS tests.
- School Percentiles: A school percentile
between 1 and 99 is reported for most schools. This number shows the
overall performance of our school relative to other schools that serve the
same or similar grades. Our school percentile is not provided this year
since our school participated in the first year of the 2017 Next
Generation MCAS tests.
- Progress and Performance Index (PPI): The
PPI is a number that indicates our school’s progress toward narrowing
proficiency gaps, or, in other words, helping all students reach proficiency and be prepared for success
after high school. Massachusetts has set a goal of reducing proficiency
gaps by half between the years 2011 and 2017. For a group of students to
be considered to be making sufficient progress toward narrowing
proficiency gaps, its cumulative PPI must be 75 or higher. Our school PPI is not provided this year
since our school participated in the first year of the 2017 Next
Generation MCAS tests.
To
improve student achievement in our school, we continue to implement the
following:
- Use of student assessment data to inform
decision-making and professional development activities.
- Better utilization of technology in the
building as we are in our second year of our one-to-one initiative with
Chromebooks.
- Increase our integration of 21st
Century Learning (Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and
Creativity) into our day-to-day instruction and to continue to educate our
student body for the world they reside.
- Improve our instructional strategies,
especially in terms of personalization and differentiation, with our
students within core classes as well as in our support/enrichment periods
of DIAL.
We
encourage you to become involved in helping us improve our school. Some of the
ways you can become involved are:
- Encouraging your child’s learning at home
and staying in contact with us as a school.
- Attending parent-teacher meetings and
other special meetings.
- Serving as a volunteer in our school or
district.
- Encouraging other parents to become
involved.
For
more information about our school’s report card or to request information about
the qualifications of your child’s classroom teachers, please feel free to
contact us in the Main Office.
Sincerely,
Martin R. Geoghegan
2017 Official Accountability Data - John T. Nichols Middle |
| Organization Information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| District: | Middleborough (01820000) | School type: | Middle School |
| School: | John T. Nichols Middle (01820305) | Grades served: | 06,07,08 |
| Region: | Southeast | Title I status: | Non-Title I School (NT) |
| Accountability Information | |
|---|---|
| Accountability and Assistance Level | |
No level | Students in this school participated in 2017 Next Generation MCAS tests |
| This school's overall performance relative to other schools in same school type (School percentiles: 1-99) | |
| All students: | - |
| 2017 Assessment Participation | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Student Group | English Language Arts | Mathematics | Science | |||||||||
| Enrolled | Assessed | % | Met Target | Enrolled | Assessed | % | Met Target | Enrolled | Assessed | % | Met Target | |
| All Students | 789 | 785 | 99 | Yes | 789 | 785 | 99 | Yes | 272 | 269 | 99 | Yes |
| High needs | 324 | 323 | 100 | Yes | 324 | 323 | 100 | Yes | 113 | 111 | 98 | Yes |
| Econ. Disadvantaged | 241 | 240 | 100 | Yes | 241 | 240 | 100 | Yes | 83 | 81 | 98 | Yes |
| ELL and Former ELL | 3 | - | - | - | 3 | - | - | - | 1 | - | - | - |
| Students w/disabilities | 147 | 147 | 100 | Yes | 147 | 146 | 99 | Yes | 53 | 51 | 96 | Yes |
| Amer. Ind. or Alaska Nat. | 7 | - | - | - | 7 | - | - | - | 2 | - | - | - |
| Asian | 10 | - | - | - | 10 | - | - | - | 2 | - | - | - |
| Afr. Amer./Black | 16 | - | - | - | 16 | - | - | - | 6 | - | - | - |
| Hispanic/Latino | 35 | 35 | 100 | Yes | 35 | 35 | 100 | Yes | 10 | - | - | - |
| Multi-race, Non-Hisp./Lat. | 21 | 21 | 100 | Yes | 21 | 21 | 100 | Yes | 6 | - | - | - |
| Nat. Haw. or Pacif. Isl. | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| White | 700 | 696 | 99 | Yes | 700 | 697 | 100 | Yes | 246 | 244 | 99 | Yes |
NOTE: In 2017, assessment participation was calculated two ways: First, the 2017 participation rate for each subgroup in each subject area test was calculated. If the actual 2017 participation rate was lower than 95 percent (high schools) or 90 percent (schools and districts administering Next-Generation MCAS test in grades 3-8) for any group in any subject, that rate was compared to the average of the most recent two years of assessment participation data for that group and subject. The higher of the two resulting rates was factored into the assignment of the school or district's 2017 accountability and assistance level.
|
| About this Report |
|---|
Accountability and Assistance Levels: All Massachusetts schools and districts with sufficient data are classified into one of five accountability and assistance levels (1-5), with the highest performing in Level 1 and lowest performing in Level 5. In general, a district is classified into the level of its lowest performing school, unless the district was independently classified into Level 4 or 5 as a result of action by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. Schools and districts that administered the Next Generation MCAS assessment in grades 3-8 in 2017 have not been placed into Levels 1-3 on the basis of their assessment results, but may have been assigned an accountability an assistance level (3-5) for other reasons, as noted on this report.
School Percentiles: A school percentile between 1 and 99 is reported for schools with at least four years of data. This number is an indication of the school's overall performance relative to other schools that serve the same or similar grades. School percentiles were not calculated for schools that administered the Next Generation MCAS assessment in grades 3-8 in spring 2017.
Progress and Performance Index (PPI): The PPI combines information about narrowing proficiency gaps, growth, and graduation and dropout rates over multiple years into a single number. All districts, schools, and student subgroups receive an annual PPI based on improvement over a two-year period and a cumulative PPI (shown above) between 0 and 100 based on four years of data. For a group to be considered to be making progress toward narrowing proficiency gaps, its cumulative PPI must be 75 or higher. Annual and cumulative PPIs were not calculated for schools and districts that administered the Next Generation MCAS assessment in grades 3-8 in spring 2017.
|
| Resources |
|---|
 Interpretive Materials |
  Glossary of 2017 Accountability Terms |
