GAINESVILLE — There were no big surprises on the inaugural Georgia Milestones assessments for Hall County students, but there may be some confusion for parents when they get reports on Friday for individual students.
Kevin Bales, Director of Middle and Secondary Education for the Hall County School System, told school board members at a meeting Monday night that as far the "big picture" is concerned, Hall County students performed well.
"We have scores that are just a little bit below the state average on elementary [although] a lot of our elementary schools were above the state average," said Bales. "We're above the state average in actually 19 of 20 assessments at the middle and high school level, so that's actually very positive data."
Still, Bales said the school system won't be bragging about the numbers because there's plenty of room for improvement.
"It's hard to go out this early in the stage of a new assessment and champion the phrase 'We stink a little less than everybody else across the state,'" said Bales. "We look at it from an improvement mindset that we can get better."
Bales said parents will receive assessment results for their students on Friday.
"We'll have a cover letter, but you're talking about a score report that's going to be close to four to five pages in length," said Bales.
He said he encourages parents to be in touch with their individual schools for help with interpreting the scores.
The Georgia Milestones Assessment System replaces the previous Criterion Reference Competency Test - or CRCT; Bales said Milestones is a very different test from CRCT.
"Virtually impossible comparison, primarily because we went from a three-tier system...to all of a sudden we have four tiers."
The four achievement levels for Milestones are Beginning Learner, Developing Learner, Proficient Learner, or Distinguished Learner; for CRCT the three achievement levels were Does Not Meet, Meets, or Exceeds.
The state released overall results for Milestones in September. District and individual school results are now available on the DOE website.
