2014-15 Assessment

 

Dear Families,

Last year at a Lower School Parent Coffee and at the spring State of the School address, I spoke about the assessments taken in the Lower School, the need for streamlining assessments, and finding an assessment that better met the needs of the students at Eagle Ridge Academy.  Students at Eagle Ridge Academy scored very high on their NWEA-Map assessments.  The NWEA-Map assessment did not give specific information to teachers to be able to help our students (particularly our high-performing ones) grow each year.  Since we give up instructional time to administer assessments, we want to make sure they are valuable in many ways.

After spending last year researching and analyzing the different types of assessments available to our school and students, a new assessment has been selected.  Eagle Ridge Academy will no longer participate in the NWEA-Map testing starting with the 2014-15 school year.  Instead, we will take the ERB-CTP test in the spring of 2015 in grades 2-5.

ERB stands for Educational Records Bureau.  ERB is a well-known educational member association for private schools, some charter schools, and high-performing public school districts.  CTP stands for Comprehensive Testing Program.  The rigorous test includes reading, listening, vocabulary, writing, math, and in some grades verbal and quantitative reasoning.  You can learn more information about ERB and the CTP test at https://erblearn.org/https://erblearn.org/

We are looking forward to using the information gained from this assessment to help drive our instruction and curriculum in the future.  The first year is our baseline year, so please remember there will be nothing to compare the scores to initially.  However, the specific information you receive about your child’s achievement in different areas will be useful in helping him or her grow.

In the spring, I will hold a parent coffee dedicated to reading and interpreting the ERB test results.  I want to make sure you understand the format and how to get the most out of the results for your child.  More information about this event will come at a later date.

I look forward to our new assessment, as I believe it will give us more instructional days in the classroom, and provide the home/school team with needed information about academic growth and skills for each student. 

Sincerely,

Melanie Baier

Principal of the School of Grammar