BCSS Students Show Growth in GA Milestones Subjects

Barrow County School System students showed strong progress in mastering academic proficiency in many subject areas on the 2023-2024 Georgia Milestones.

“These assessment results give us a gauge of how well our students understand what they are learning. We are proud of the growth they’ve made, and our staff is committed to helping them reach their potential,” said BCSS Superintendent Dr. Dallas LeDuff.

ABOUT THE GEORGIA MILESTONES

The Georgia Milestones (GMAS) serve as an assessment to determine mastery of learning in a course or a grade level. The results of these assessments allow us to monitor and improve initiatives and instructional practices. The resulting score on these assessments is on a scale of one to four:

Scores of these assessments are on a scale of one to four: (1) beginning learner, (2) developing learner, (3) proficient learner, or (4) distinguished learner.

Students who fully master the standards achieve at the proficient level and the distinguished level indicates moving beyond that level.

HIGH SCHOOL END-OF-COURSE (EOC) ASSESSMENTS

High school students are required to complete four End-of-Course (EOC) assessments. These exams are tied to Math, English-Language Arts (ELA), Science, and Social Studies. The score the student receives on these EOC exams is converted to a grade from 0-100 that becomes part of their final course grade.

When looking at progress on these exams since the COVID-19 pandemic, BCSS students have improved their achievement levels in math. ELA continues to grow as well as continued strong performances in science and social studies despite drops in the number of students scoring proficient and above.

BCSS students who took the science and social studies 2023-24 EOC and earned a grade of 70 or higher surpassed the state average. Their ELA results kept with the state average. We look forward to the release of math scores and the potential for continued growth in all areas for our high schools. We will receive math results in the fall of 2024 after standard setting is finished due to updates to statewide math standards.

3RD-8TH STUDENTS END-OF-GRADE (EOG) ASSESSMENTS

Third through Eighth grade students participate in End-of-Grade (EOG) assessments that seek to measure the mastery of that grade level’s content standards. The ELA assessment allows us to monitor whether students are reading at or above grade level.

On the GMAS ELA, the percentage of BCSS students scoring proficient and distinguished improved by 3 points over last year.

Fifth and Eighth grade students also participate in science assessments. Our eighth graders who enroll in high school physical science continue to show gains in their performance. We are pleased to offer this level of rigor at the middle school level.

Eighth graders also made gains in Georgia Studies.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

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