Southmoreland’s high school performance score soars

In 17 years of working with Southmoreland School District, both as a teacher and an administrator, Mr. Daniel Krofcheck has monitored the school progress and watched performance increase over the years.

“I think we’ve been doing a lot of good things in different areas over time,” Mr. Krofcheck said. “We’ve made dramatic changes in the last seven years since I’ve been principal.”

Mr. Krofcheck suggested the “increase in the rigor of classes, even in our electives,” has helped the school performance score increase dramatically from one year ago.

The school performance score, which was 71.1 on a 100-point scale in 2015, jumped to 83.4 in scores recently released by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. That places Southmoreland behind only Franklin Regional, Norwin and Greater Latrobe among the 17 school districts in Westmoreland County. Mt. Pleasant Area High School, adjacent to Southmoreland, was 14th with a 66.1 score. Yough, which also borders Southmoreland, was ninth with 77.1.

“We’ve kept fine arts where other schools take a hit,” Mr. Krofcheck said. “We should be grateful to have our music teachers actually teaching music, rather than being math tutors.”

Southmoreland’s classes have drastically changed since the turn of the century. Prior to this change both “general” and “academic” courses existed, aside from our current system with college preparatory and advanced placement courses.

Dr. Jack Molnar, superintendent of Southmoreland School District, weighed in on the high school’s performance.

“It’s finally a result of what we started several years ago by increasing the rigor of our programming,” Dr. Molnar said. “College preparatory courses being our baseline for students and removing academic courses was what created this increase in our performance ranking.”

“We’ve eliminated general and academic courses entirely and increased the number of AP courses. This factor certainly improved our school,” Mr. Krofcheck said. “When half of your population is receiving less than ‘average’ curriculum, how do you expect to do a better job?”

Mr. Krofcheck makes it clear the he doesn’t think the school is “perfect,” but due to these  academic changes, SHS has improved in both the math and literature scores. Students have shown a 40 percent increase in math since 2006 and a 20 percent increase in literature from 2006 to 2016, both resulting in scores that surpass 80 percent. In fact, last year’s scores had Southmoreland scoring 88 percent in literature and an 81 in math.

“We’ve made gains without sacrifices at Southmoreland. Not only have we kept our electives varied, we have left behind the shop classes but revolutionized and replaced them with STEM courses,” said Mr. Krofcheck. “Our art and music departments are highly respected, and we even offer five levels of (foreign) language, including AP, whereas other schools do not.”

Since 2002, also known as the “age of accountability” or the “no child left behind” period, Mr. Krofcheck said Southmoreland was criticized by people who said “all we worry about is the testing, but in reality, we’ve been relatively balanced with freedom and making school appealing to students, as well as level our concerns of testing.”

“May it be algebra or literature, the tests the students receive are selected accurately,” Dr. Molnar explained. “Students are appropriately placed into courses they can understand and that benefit’s their growth to take the state’s standardized tests.”

Mr. Krofcheck said the goal for this school year and those to come “is to focus on future career and college pathways. I’ve witnessed by sitting in on a few classes what students who are taking AP courses are capable of.

“We are trying to achieve the goal of preventing kids from asking why they need to know algebra if they aren’t pursuing a career involving it, or why they need to learn about the War of 1812,” Mr. Krofcheck continued. “It’s about knowing how to analyze the decisions that were made during the War of 1812 and the effects of those decisions. This will help the student’s thought process and deductive reasoning.”

Mr. Krofcheck theorized that students who go on to study law and become attorney’s “will major in history or English, and learn of these kinds of things in order to help them look further into a scenario or case. They have the appropriate teaching to help then delve deep into their work and pay close attention to details and analyze them.”

He said that school officials are looking to narrow the focus on the essentials of the curriculum that best helps students understand the material.

“Our teachers here at Southmoreland strive for our kids,” he said. “They do not just order them to crack open a book and work, but they stand beside those students in need and strategize with them on how to tackle their specific hardships.”

When Mr. Krofcheck was on staff as a history teacher and the “academic” level classes still existed, students were not required to write essays in their 11th grade English course. He said that has since changed.

“That kind of activity already puts you at a disadvantage,” he said. “Students today say they have too much work and essays, but it’s there for a reason. Prior to the abundance of work there was not enough being accomplished.”

Southmoreland is now ranked 4th out of the 17 high schools in Westmoreland County. Southmoreland is is ahead of Penn Trafford, Hempfield, Belle Vernon, Derry, Yough, Jeanette, Ligonier, Burrell, Greensburg-Salem, Monessen, Mount Pleasant, Kiski, and New Kensington, in that order; but surpassed only by Greater Latrobe, Norwin, and Franklin Regional, finishing first in the county.

“Another thing that helped was teachers in teams aligned with the common core, what every student should know by their senior year,” Dr. Molnar said. “Without this alignment, we cannot correctly assess these students, nor will they be accurately graded. We’re not teaching for the tests here at Southmoreland, but the skills and competencies that are necessary to students.”

Mrs. Jenna Hixson has been working at Southmoreland for 10 years. Her efforts as a teacher surpasses having students scoring proficient on the state Keystone exam. Her efforts go well outside the classroom with all the community service and fundraising projects she oversees on a regular basis.

“Students care more now about education, the future, and community, than ever before.” said Mrs. Hixson. “There is a strong correlation between the facility’s environment and the service children feel obligated to perform.”

Mrs. Kim Kelly of the math department of Southmoreland has been working with the school for 28 years and said she is pleased to see the progress the school has made.

“We have developed a consistent system,” she said. “Students are now held more accountable for their learning and success.”

Mrs. Kelley added that school officials “have injected intervention schedule for all courses to get students help during the day, rather than forcing those who can’t make time to stay after school, aside from intervention we have math tutoring for two hours twice a week. Throughout the day we have these safeguards, and this helps students meet their expectations.”

As math team leader, Mrs. Kelly said the faculty has rallied the teachers and team leaders to focus on our core subjects, helping organize and meet our necessary requirements as well as figuring out how to help those students in need.

“Students have increased those expectations, so by this point it takes everybody to make the difference in our school’s performance not just the teachers, but their students, too,” she said. “This responsibility shows off their characteristics and determination.”

“I like to compete with other schools in sports, but I feel more importantly united with the school academically,” Dr. Molnar said. “As a county, we work closely together. When we have a difficulty, we swap teams of teachers and fill the gaps appearing in each district’s programs to collaborate and better each other. We’re trying to build this homegrown workforce for all the students in the county. We  make things fair to everyone, and we respect our cohorts in fellow districts.”

Mr. Jason Zalewski is the team leader of the science department and has been working with the school for over 10 years He said that students “remain the same every year. Each individual is unique, but their personality types remain the same.”

Knowing the students basically remain the same, the team leaders know they have the only opportunity to make a difference in their student’s lives.

“With our classes, we looked at what we had before (general and academic classes) and compared it to now (with only CP and AP),” Mr. Zalewski said. “We looked for those needs in being successful, and we noticed that students who graduate from Southmoreland only had a 40 percent success rate” in working in their selected field of study.

“We took it upon ourselves to look at our needs and what we could do to modify,” said Mr. Zalewski.“With intervention time, we get students the help that makes them realize their mistakes can be fixed.”

Mr. Zalewski added that the high school faculty is “handing kids who rely on this time and their second chance to make up their work and fix a failing grade. Regardless of those who think this (intervention) time is unnecessary, there will always be students in need of this time.”

Dr. Molnar said he is very pleased with the high school’s progress.

“I’m elated. I’m proud of the teachers and the work they did,” Dr. Molnar said. “It has not been an easy process, and it’s good that we’re finally having results that mirror  the efforts of our faculty that they’ve put in for the past several years.

“I’m not only proud of the faculty but very pleased with the students as well,” Dr. Molnar continued. “Unless our students are willing to learn and work equally as hard, we wouldn’t do well at all. I congratulate and thank the students who put in the work to put us in the academic realm we deserve to be in.”

To see Dr. Molnar’s presentation to the school board, go to the website below.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSdNXwU5oqA

 

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