October 27, 2017
Dear Bullock Creek Parents:
At the Monday, October 16, 2017, Bullock Creek Board of Education meeting, recently released M-STEP results were shared with the Bullock Creek community. The M-STEP is the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress. All public school districts in Michigan completed their third year of assessment in May 2017 and results were recently released to school districts in September. This state assessment measures student achievement, mastery of standards, and individual student growth.
With this most recent assessment, Bullock Creek has seen some really positive growth. On 61.5% of the assessments, Bullock Creek students improved upon the results from the 2016 M-STEP. The most significant growth occurred in grades 3-5. Our staff and students have been working really hard to place focus on closing instruction gaps and improve learning. We have placed significant focus on our curriculum and instruction across the district and in our alignment of curriculum in grades K-5. Bullock Creek also outperformed the statewide average on 100% of the assessments and had the highest score in Midland County on 44% of the assessments.
At the high school, all juniors take the Michigan Merit Exam (MME), which consists of the SAT, ACT, Workkeys, and M-STEP for Science and Social Studies. Bullock Creek High School students continue to perform well on the Michigan Merit Exam and have outperformed the State average on all of the MME assessments for the 2016-17 school year.
In addition to seeing positive assessment results, the M-STEP also provides us with Student Growth Percentiles (SGP). This data is really great information because it helps students, parents, and educators determine if a student’s learning is above, near, or below average of their comparison group. When we look at SGP’s, we really want to see if students gained at least a years’ worth of growth, which would equate to an SGP of 50%-55% or above. In those areas in which an individual student may not have performed as well as they had hoped on the M-STEP, we have taken time to review the student’s SGP and in many cases are seeing that many of our students achieved growth beyond one year. This is encouraging because it provides us with confidence that the students are closing the gap between where they are and where they are expected to be within their grade level.
As is always the case, we are continually looking for areas in which to improve. These results are really encouraging to the district and show a significant upward trend in student achievement. We believe that we’ve done many positive things to improve instruction, align curriculum, and place more focus on first line instruction. It has been our goal of the past three years to collect meaningful data related to student achievement and determine those areas that need more focus. I am really proud of students, parents, volunteers, teachers, support staff and administrators for working hard to help us grow in all of these areas. More significant than any of these results, I believe we have the best students and staff around. Thank you for choosing Bullock Creek School District!
For additional information, I’ve attached several comparison charts for your review. You may also go to www.mischooldata.org to view additional details about Bullock Creek and other districts.
Sincerely,
Shawn J. Hale
Superintendent
PDF version: M-STEP parent letter
