From the Superintendent

There is no doubt about it - fall is here! As I write this memo our students are wrapping up the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP). Each year, public school students in grades 3-9 take the MEAP test and 11th graders take the Michigan Merit Exam (MME).

I would like to take a minute and tell you about a change regarding the MEAP and MME tests this year. The Michigan State Board of Education recently approved new MEAP and MME "cut scores" for Mathematics, Reading, Science and Social Studies. A cut score is the score that separates test takers into various categories, such as advanced, proficient, partially proficient and not proficient.

1. The new cut scores are higher and "raise the bar" for our students. They are intended to be a better measure of student progress toward being career and college ready.

2. While we anticipate an initial decline in the number of students reported as "proficient," we are confident this change will be temporary due to ongoing school improvement efforts and student support.

3. If your student is reported as "not proficient," it does not mean that your student isn't gaining academic skills or is falling behind. It means that on the day of the test, your student was not yet proficient on the material being tested. Several other measures are used in our district throughout the year to insure that your student is making academic progress.

I fully support raising the cut score on these assessments as they better match our high standards for our students at the local level. We will not have official results until later this year - but I wanted to make sure you were in the loop regarding this change.

The start of the 2011- 2012 school year has been very smooth! Our student numbers are up a little bit from what we projected - and due to that we did open up a new section of kindergarten and a 3rd /4th grade class.

Please remember that you are always welcome to attend our School Board meetings to stay current on important school news and district developments. Don't forget, if you can't attend the meetings the minutes are always posted on our website.

Ann M. Cardon

Superintendent of Schools

(231) 821-1700