Danvers Elementary Schools Make Progress In Latest MCAS Results

DANVERS, MA -- Danvers Public Schools officials were sifting through the data released by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Thursday, but could already see that the elementary schools had generally made progress in meeting state standards. Superintendent Lisa Dana said department heads and other school officials would present the scores and an analysis of what they mean to the school committee on October 15.

The biggest problem identified so far was that the Holten-Richmond School did not meet state targets. Still, the state assessed the district as "not needing intervention" under new evaluation criteria which takes into factors beyond student performance on standardized tests, including improvement of students in the lowest-scoring tiers in year-over-year performance/

"We are looking at long term solutions to improving the student achievement on the MCAS and will continue our work to engage students in their learning through project-based learning that is focused on the standards in the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks and more formally monitor the progress of students toward meeting the standard," Dana said.

The elementary schools were aided by a Writer's Workshop program, Dana said. Danvers High School also so improvement in ELA scores on the MCAS tests.

The complete report for Danvers is available on the DESE Website.

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Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).