BROWNSBURG, Ind. -- The Brownsburg Community School Corporation is the largest public school district in the state to receive all As from the Indiana Department of Education on its accountability grades.
Brownsburg schools also earned No. 1 in the state for public schools in the percentage of students passing both the math and English portions of the ISTEP.
All schools in the district earned an “A” accountability grade, which measures performance and growth, and takes into account factors like graduation rates and college and career readiness indicators.
Brown Elementary Principal Casey Smitherman said the numbers show Brownsburg is on the right path.
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“I think it’s a lot of hard work but it’s about a community pulling together, a community of teachers, parents, we have amazing parent volunteers and kids who are working hard and staying focused on exactly what we need,” said Smitherman. “We didn’t know what the test was going to be last year. It was a blind target.”
More than 23 percent of the 8,737 students are on free and reduced lunch, according to 2016-2017 figures.
Smitherman said Brownsburg is proof a diverse student body can be extremely successful.
“We have a lot of interventions in place for kids that are struggling,” said Smitherman. “While the test score is just one measure of learning only one measure, we know those results mean our kids are reading and writing at very high levels and that’s something we are very proud of.”
Smitherman said they also have professional learning communities that will brainstorm on how to help struggling students.
“We also work really hard on a concept called similar to identical, so regardless of which elementary school they’re in, they’re going to have the same experience whether it’s reading the same stories or having math at the same time across the district,” said Smitherman.
Smitherman said while the test results were just released, they’ve been working for years on a new system to improve student learning.
They also make it a point not to stress children out about ISTEP.
“If we can have a little fun with it, that makes life easier for all of us,” said Smitherman.
Superintendent Jim Snapp shared his thoughts with parents in an e-mail.
“Classroom assessments and other external measures all yield the same results - our students perform at the highest levels in the state and achieve great things in the classroom every day,” said Snapp. “All of this is a tribute to our entire staff who support our students each day from the bus to the classroom to the learning lab to the cafeteria and all places in between. We recognize that if our students learned in environments that were only focused on test scores but did not care for each other, we would have missed the mark.”
Of all school districts the same size as Brownsburg or bigger, which is 51 districts, they’re the only ones who earned all As.
