PAWS Scores High In Teton County

Results from last year’s PAWS testing have yielded some very high scores for Teton County school children.  PAWS stands for Proficiency Assessments for Wyoming Students and is required as an assessment tool to under the federal No Child Left Behind regulations.  This year’s scores showed Jackson Hole High School students who were proficient or above numbered between 85% and 90.5%, Jackson Hole Middle School numbered in the mid-80 percentile, Wilson School at 90% and Kelly School at 100% for the second year in a row.  The credit, says Superintendent Pam Shea, can certainly be shared.  Shea says the teachers, students and parents who support those students have helped bring the focus on developing literacy and a deep understanding and critical thinking in their reading and writing.  She says that is the foundation needed in order to be able to learn more complex material in other content areas.  This, she says, appears to be the basis of the improvement.   One school still needing more improvement is Colter, which Shea admits has the added challenge of working with students new to the English language.  She says it takes from five to seven years to learn a second language, and learn it well enough to understand the academic vocabulary.  She points out that Colter has improved over the past several years, and particularly in fifth grade there was a jump in test scores. Shea says the current focus in the schools appears to be working as a viable improvement model, and the as a result the test scores are improving.