Students in Hermosa’s two public schools continued to score in the top 10 percent statewide, according to the latest results from standardized academic tests.
For the second year in a row, students at the second-through-eighth grade Hermosa Valley School earned 937 out of a possible 1,000 points in the Academic Performance Index, or API, which is the state Department of Education’s main measure of how the schools are doing.
Students at the kindergarten-through-second grade Hermosa View School scored 951 out of 1,000 on the index, an improvement over last year’s score of 938.
Among California schools with similar demographic profiles, educators ranked both Hermosa schools in the top 10 percent.
Valley School Principal Patricia Escalante chalked up the high scores to the hard work of teachers and the “focus of the school community” to continue improving the students’ education.
She praised the teachers’ use of “differentiated instruction,” with flexible coursework that encourages students to study at a more advanced level if they can. A reading assignment, for instance, can include optional questions requiring higher-level thinking for kids with more advanced verbal skills.
She also pointed to the recent adoption of “Saxon math,” a research based program that encourages ongoing assessment of the students’ mastery of math concepts.
Escalante said the test scores are prompting “a very targeted focus” on writing instruction at Valley, where the scores could be improved.
“It’s a trend we identified and want to address,” she said.
Teachers sought additional training over the summer in reading instruction, Escalante said.
The Academic Performance Index is designed to measure student achievement in areas such as English-language arts, mathematics, science, and history.
State educators compile the index using the “STAR” Standardized Testing and Reporting tests, high school exit exams (which are not taken in Hermosa), and the California Modified Assessment, which is administered to some students with disabilities in third through fifth grades.
To create the “similar school” rankings, state officials compare schools with similar characteristics including pupil mobility, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, percentage of teachers who are fully credentialed, percentage of teachers who hold emergency credentials, and percentage of pupils who are English language learners.
Other factors include average class size per grade level, percentage of students in gifted and talented education programs, percentage of students with disabilities, percentage of reclassified fluent-English-proficient students, and percentage of migrant education students.
In a separate state measure, Valley and View schools met all nine goals recorded in an Adequate Yearly Progress Report.
And in results released about a week ago, Hermosa students continued to score high on another set of academic testing called the California Standards Tests.
In that testing, which is designed to measure whether the students’ education meets the state’s academic standards, 87 percent of Hermosa students scored proficient or above in English language arts, holding steady with the scores of the year before.
Ninety percent of Hermosa students scored proficient or better in history, a 1 percent improvement from the year before.
Eighty-nine percent of the students scored proficient or better in math, marking a 2 percent improvement from the year before.
Ninety percent of Hermosa students scored proficient or better in history, a 1 percent improvement from the year before.
Ninety-two percent of the students scored proficient or better in science, a 3 percent improvement from the year before.
