GREEN RIVER — Sweetwater County School District No. 2 Superintendent Craig Barringer presented the district’s WY-TOPP and ACT scores for the 2023-24 school year during the Board of Trustees meeting Tuesday night.
Barringer said overall, the district was above the state averages for English language arts, math, and science WY-TOPP testing, as well as for the junior classes’ ACT scores. Board Chairman Steve Core, in his final meeting as a trustee, said he felt a lot better about this year’s report than last year’s. He said the district has shown, “very good improvement.”
WDE Performance Report
Additionally, according to Wyoming Department of Education performance reports, three SCSD No. 2 schools exceeded expectations, two met expectations, one partially met expectations, while Truman did not meet expectations for the second year in a row.
“The biggest jump was at Monroe where they went from not meeting expectations to exceeding expectations,” Barringer said. He believes Truman principal Greg Figenser has made changes at Truman that will be reflected in the current school year’s test results.
Monroe Elementary, Washington Elementary, and Expedition Academy High School are the schools exceeding expectations. Green River High School and Harrison Elementary are meeting expectations, and Lincoln Middle School is the school partially meeting expectations. The Granger and McKinnon elementary schools do not have large enough student populations to make these performance classifications.
WY-TOPP Scores
For the ELA WY-TOPP scores, SCSD No. 2 performed above the Wyoming state average for each grade except for 7th and 8th grade. Barringer said the district gained 1.3% over last year’s scores in ELA testing.
“We tested above the average in ELA… we had several of the buildings outscore the state averages,” Barringer said.
In the math WY-TOPP, Barringer said the district scored 2% higher than the state’s average. Every grade scored higher than the state average with the exception of 4th and 9th grade, and the 7th and 10th scores met the state average. Additionally, Barringer said SCSD No. 2 were once again above the state average in the three grades that take the science WY-TOPP test, which are 4th, 8th, and 10th grades.
ACT Scores and Moving Forward
As for ACT, Barringer said Wyoming is one of six states that require every junior class student to take the ACT.
“Typically the ACT test is for kids going to college, so most states that offer it is just for those kids,” Barringer said.
However, of the six states that require each junior to take it, Wyoming scored the highest. Additionally, Barringer said SCSD No. 2’s scores were above the state average for the second year in a row. GRHS’ average composite score was 19.2, and Expedition Academy’s was 15, giving the district an average of 18.9. This meets the state’s average composite score, which is also 18.9.
“Moving forward, we will communicate with the stakeholders about the successes and challenges, I think we’ve made some improvements on that. We send out a monthly newsletter, we meet with a group of people once a month early in the morning, the business department is sending out a newsletter, curriculum is updating people frequently,” Barringer said.
He said the district will also continue to support staff through their work in PLCs and professional development. He said they will also continue work at the elementary level in the areas of phonics and writing.
“Last year we brought in some training for writing, and the phonics is an area we have bolstered in the last three years,” he said.
Over the next couple of years, the district will also be updating the ELA and math curriculums.
“Both groups are meeting, we will make decisions on both ELA and math this year, and we plan to roll out the English and language arts next year [in] K-5, and the math [in] 6-8, and then reverse that for the following year,” he said.
