While the recent release of School Performance Profiles may have painted an underperforming picture of Jim Thorpe Area School District, a careful look into curriculum and testing shows how the area's schools are striving to not just make the grade, but exceed it.

"I'll be the first to say that Jim Thorpe Area School District was one of the lower scores you saw on the front page (of the Times News), but there is an explanation for that," Jim Thorpe Superintendent Brian Gasper said at a board meeting on Monday. "You can't necessarily use that as a grade. You're not comparing apples to apples."While the high school scored a 67.6 percent, L.B. Morris scored 61.1 percent, and Penn-Kidder campus scored 69.6 percent, the testing mechanisms themselves may have played a part in making the schools' scores appear relatively low.School Performance Profilesare a collection of data from district and school testing that provide portraits of student academic performance and growth in Pennsylvania public schools. Standardized testing, including the Pennsylvania State School Assessments and Keystone Exams, are the foundation of the program.In recent years, with the introduction of PA Common Core standards, the PSSAs have changed somewhat."Due to the change of the PSSA a few years ago to fully include the PA Common Core standards, JTASD has been in the process of adjusting our curriculum to meet the PA Common Core Standards," Gasper said. "Currently, the curriculum of all tested grades have been adjusted to the common core, but unfortunately, this process is a long and arduous one."Many other districts have been replacing the Pennsylvania State School Assessments with the newer PA Common Core over the past few years, so those that have completed the transition almost have an advantage when it comes to the SPPs."With the old standards, we used to go a mile long, but a foot deep," Gasper said. "We're coving a lot of information, but not going very deep. With the Common Core, it may go half a mile long, but far deeper."In this respect, Common Core strategies could be rather beneficial with helping to shift students from a mere "proficient" rating to a more coveted "advanced" rating.Formerly, most of the effort in regard to SPP grades was invested in bringing students up to the proficiency benchmark, but Jim Thorpe wants to expand its methodology to help develop the students even further."We have a lot of great students, and instead of just giving them more work, we want to give them deeper work," Gasper said.In addition, the growth calculations that are a fundamental part of SPPs can easily be misread if one does not consider the relative size of the gap that a district is trying to close in on."It really depends on when they started SPP and where we stood. We stood higher when we tested our students years ago, so therefore when we're trying to close this gap, we have a smaller gap to close. Closing a 5 percent gap when we're already doing pretty well is pretty difficult," Gasper said.Problems with the SPPs have been apparent for a number of years, and currently the state's Department of Education is working to address the issue. In fact, with the last round of tests, missing information in regard to Individual Education Programs threw off some schools' grades by a percentage point.The PDE is currently orchestrating feedback sessions with school administrators, teachers, parents, industry leaders, higher education officials, and policy makers in order to develop what they are referring to as a more "holistic SPP," stretching outside the boundaries of standardized tests in order to get a broader view of education levels.Gasper participated in these efforts, expressing that including information such as the number of students that are moving on to higher education could provide a more complete picture of a school's success."There's a lot of research out there that indicates what would help the SPP to be more holistic. Not perfect, but better," Gasper said.Nevertheless, SPP testing does help to shine a light on some areas that could use improvement, and Jim Thorpe is taking notice.For example, the district's math growth sits at a score of 50. Educators and administrators have been working on this area, with measures at L.B. Morris and Penn-Kidder focusing on implementing Envision Math into grades three through five, and the Big Ideas math series for grades three through eight. These programs address the Common Core more appropriately, and will hopefully lead to increased SPP scores.Furthermore, the high school is looking to Project Lead the Way to work in more critical thinking skills for science and math courses. The recent distribution of laptops to students could also play a valuable role, along with the potential to switch to a block scheduling system in the future. Simply put, it could result in better learning opportunities with modern technology, and more time to approach difficult subjects.Overall, Gasper and the district are striving to show that the school has much more to show than just a collection of statistics from standardized tests. Many new programs are in progress, along with changes to old measures, all with a focus on student growth."Of course, I have my own opinion of the Common Core standards and standardized testing, but the reality is that public schools must administer the PSSA and Keystone exams to our students," Gasper said. "As a district, we are constantly reviewing SPP and several other forms of student data to ensure our academic programs are preparing our students for academic success."