Godwin aims for higher math score

Mills Godwin Middle School principal Veronica Abrams knows that her students’ scores on the Standards of Learning mathematics exams have got to go up.

So Abrams and the staff at the Dale City school will be placing extra emphasis on the subject after finding out that the students failed to meet the minimum passing standards for the third straight year.

This year’s goal is a 90 percent pass rate. After scoring a 70 percent pass in 2005-06, the school’s last three scores have been 63 percent, 65 percent and 68 percent. Had Godwin scored 2 percentage points higher this year, every Prince William County school would have been fully SOL accredited.

“Even at lunchtime [we will be doing math],” Abrams said. “We will eat and do math at the same time.”

Under Virginia’s accountability program, a school that has been on academic warning for three consecutive years and fails to meet state standards for a fourth consecutive year can apply to the Board of Education for conditional accreditation — if the local school board agrees to reconstitute the school’s leadership, staff, governance or student population.

A reconstituted school can retain conditional accreditation for up to three years, if it is making acceptable progress toward meeting state standards.

Abrams said she was disappointed with the test results this year but pointed to some factors that may have played a part in the low scores. Abrams said that when she came to Godwin three years ago, there wasn’t much in the way of technology — something she has tried to improve.

She also lost a teacher midway through last year and said that some of her students have come to Godwin several levels behind in mathematics.

To address the situation, Godwin hired a new administrator with a math background and will once again be using the computer program I Can Learn Fundamentals of Math, thanks to recently received grant money.

Abrams will also be encouraging teachers to stay after school to assist children in their studies and will be meeting with teachers on a weekly basis to assess the students’ progress in each subject. Many of her students are latch-key kids, so it’s important they are provided the proper academic guidance, said Abrams.

Before 2005-06, a cumulative math test, designed to test knowledge of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade material, was given to students in the eighth grade. That cumulative test included some material below the eighth-grade level.

But in 2005-06, students in each grade were given a separate test to measure their knowledge of the material for their own grade level. Consequently, several schools around the state scored lower than in previous years.

A school with similar demographics, Fred Lynn Middle School, tallied just 50 percent that year — before rebounding with scores of 60 percent, 70 percent and 81 percent the past three years.

Fred Lynn principal J. Harrison-Coleman said combining special education and general education students together — a process called inclusion — helped the school achieve SOL accreditation. The implementation of benchmark testing and weekly assessments in all subject areas also helped, said Harrison-Coleman.

“We are taking that data, meeting with the teachers and looking at weak areas and addressing them,” said Harrison-Coleman, who worked in the Portsmouth area as a Virginia turnaround specialist before coming to Fred Lynn in 2007-08.

Abrams said she was not aware of Fred Lynn’s scores this year but said that regardless of race or socio-economic status, every school can improve its test scores.

“Good teaching is good teaching wherever it is,” Abrams said. “You have to make connections with the students and find things that motivate them.”

Staff writer Kipp Hanley can be reached at 703-878-8062.