GF Elementary honored for student progress

The pride in Danette Chaney’s voice was abundant.

The longtime Green Forest School District employee and elementary school principal for the past 12 years took advantage of an opportunity to brag on her staff and students for recent statewide academic achievement and recognition.

“It just kind of validates our hard work,” Chaney said recently from her office where she sat alongside elementary counselor Becky Tharp. “Sometimes in all the everyday tasks that we have, we forget to celebrate the things that mean the most to us as educators. So, it’s nice to celebrate and celebrate the success of our teaching staff and our students.”

That success came to the forefront late last year when Green Forest Elementary was recognized by both Arkansas Department of Education and Office of Education Policy at the University of Arkansas following results of ACT Aspire Examinations.

The exams, taken each spring by Green Forest third-graders, tests students’ levels in reading, writing, English, math and science.

“Usually the students take the in April,” Chaney said. “We have a window that we can give the tests and honest we try to wait to the very last minute so that we can get as much instruction provided to the students.

“Those tests are not easy. For a third-grader to have to sit down and use a Chromebook, they’re having to scroll from page to page, read a passage, then scroll back to the question. And they’re typing. They have to type out their answers and there is a time allotment.

“Another aspect of it is getting the kids ready, not only curriculum-wise, but just the students being prepared to take that type of a test. It takes a lot of work.” The work certainly paid off last spring.

Green Forest Elementary finished 11th overall in the state on overall ACT Aspire Growth Scores for the 2021-2022 school year, third in the Northwest Arkansas region in the overall growth scores, and No. 1 in the state in growth in English-Language Arts.

“We choose to focus on student growth for these OEP awards because we think it is a better reflection than proficiency rates of how the school is impacting students,” according to a report from Sarah McKenzie with the Office of Education Policy in Fayetteville. “Growth is calculated at the student level, and essentially reflects how much a student improved his or her score from the prior year compared to what was predicted based on prior achievement history.

“In this case, the calculations are based on the 2020-21 scores as well as scores from 2018-19 and before. Proficiency rates, even those that move beyond the ‘percent proficient’ like our OEP GPA and Arkansas’ weighted achievement score, are more correlated with student demographics than growth scores. This means that schools can demonstrate high student growth regardless of the characteristics of the students that they serve.”

According to the OEP report, Green Forest Elementary had 100 third-graders take the ACT Aspire exam and the overall content growth was 86.34.

In addition, the school led the state with an 89.24 growth rate in English Language Arts.

“Each year, we take our school report, and we look at it,” Chaney said. “We see where our weaknesses are. And that’s our focus for that next school year to see how we can maintain what we had the year before, but also how can we grow for the next school year? So, if we’re using our student data and looking at how to improve our instruction wherever we see that slack, wherever that gap is, we’re working to fill that gap so we can reach the next step.

“It takes everyone. Classroom teachers, paraprofessionals, our ESL teachers, our activity teachers who are even teaching reading during their classes, whether it be art, music, and P.E., in addition to the classroom teachers doing what they can in the classroom. It’s definitely a joint effort here Green Forest. I have a wonderful staff. They jump on board with me every year when I have an idea. They don’t complain. They jump on board with me and here we go. I think we work together as a team that that’s part of our success here at the elementary school.”

In addition to the overall growth recognition, Green Forest Elementary also came in second in the state in the category “Beating the Odds: High Growth School Based on the ACT Aspire Examinations, Serving Low-Income Communities.”

That top 10 list focuses on schools where at least 66 percent of the student body is eligible for free or reduced-priced lunches.

Green Forest Elementary had 81 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-priced lunches for the 2021-2022 school year, according to the report.

“For us to have that number of free and reduced lunches and then for the number of our kids to be English language learners, and they’re able to perform where they’re at, I’ll take it,” Chaney said. “We’re doing it. We’re doing a great job.”

In addition to the recognition from OEP, the school is receiving a $42,900 award from the Arkansas Department of Education for being a “Reward School” for 2022, meaning the school finished in the top five percent in growth.

Pursuant to Arkansas Code 6-15-2107, “the Arkansas School Recognition Program was created to provide financial awards to public schools that experience high student performance, student academic growth, and for secondary schools, high graduation rate.”

The statewide performance and growth amount for 2022 was $6,877,600.

“ can be used for some different things,” Chaney said. “A committee has to be formed, but we haven’t gotten to that part yet.”

What Chaney and her staff have gotten to is focusing on another round of ACT Aspire exams which will be given in the next couple of months.

“This growth means it’s ongoing,” she said. “It’s not just one group of kids performing well. We’re continuing to have success and our test scores are in our instruction. I don’t want to even say test scores, but it’s in our instruction. I would say that our biggest focus is on our literacy, the English-language arts portion of the test and with our number of students that are English language learners here at Green Forest, literacy is always going to be a high priority for us.”

But until those next OEP results come out at the end of 2023, Chaney and her staff will continue to be proud of the positive results the 2021-2022 third graders saw.

“Like I said, it’s just a validation that we’re on the right track,” she said. “We’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing. Yes, we can always improve. Every school district can improve in different ways, but we’re on the right track and we just need to keep going. You don’t stop, you keep going. You don’t say, ‘OK, we’ve made it this far, let’s just stay the same.’

“We don’t want to flatline. We want to keep growing. We want our students to grow. And if we want that, our teachers have to grow.”