by Kate Evans
Warm Springs Intermediate School Principal Rebecca Huber told the Morgan County school board at their March 4 meeting about the accomplishments that the staff and students had achieved this year during the school’s strategic plan update.
Student academic accomplishments include Math Field Day winners, Regional science fair winners, Social Studies Fair winners and Young Writer Contest winners. Shanahan Elmore and Marianna Ruggiero are now National Board Certified teachers.
“Kudos to them,” Huber said.
Huber said she is really proud of their students for doing so well. “They’re really good kids.”
Demographics, leadership
Warm Springs Intermediate School serves 345 students in third through fifth grade. The school has 96% Caucasian students, 3% multi-racial, 1% Afro-American and 0% Asian students.
The intermediate school’s poverty rate is very similar to last year’s rate, Huber said. 41% of its students are considered low socio-economic status and 59% are non-low socio-economic status.
The school leadership team is Principal Rebecca Huber, Assistant Principal Joy Woofter, Shanahan Elmore-third grade, Tia Myers-fourth grade, Kacey Avey-fifth grade, Marianna Ruggiero-Unified Arts and Christina Rose-special education.
State proficiencies
Huber said their students are doing well on the West Virginia General Summative Assessment. Third grade had 57% reading proficiency, fourth grade-50% and fifth grade 41% reading proficiency on last spring’s state exams. Fifth grade achieved 36% proficiency in science.
Grade 3’s 57% reading proficiency topped Morgan County Schools 50% proficiency and West Virginia’s 46% reading proficiency. Grade 4 had 50% compared to Morgan County Schools 46% and West Virginia’s 47%.
Grade 5 had a reading proficiency of 41% compared to 42% proficiency of Morgan County Schools and 45% for the state.
Math results
Grade 3 scored 63% in math proficiency on the 2024 state exams compared to 50% math proficiency for Morgan County Schools and 46% for the state.
Grade 4 achieved 47% math proficiency compared to 46% proficiency for Morgan County Schools. Grade 5 had 33% math proficiency compared to 42% for Morgan County Schools and 45% for West Virginia.
Warm Springs Intermediate School students scored 36% in science on the 2024 state exams.
Benchmark data
Intermediate school students I-Ready reading benchmark data went from 29% being early on grade level/mid or above grade level at the beginning of the year to 42% of students being early on grade level/mid or above grade at the middle of the year assessments, Huber said.
Some 33% were approaching grade level at the beginning of the year.
Beginning of the year benchmark assessment data for I-Ready math showed 18% of students being early on grade level/mid or above grade level with 47% approaching grade level. Middle of the year benchmark data had 25% of students being early on grade level/mid or above grade level with 42% approaching grade level.
Huber said she thought they were heading in the right direction. Scores haven’t been this high since 2014.
Attendance
Huber said that the school’s daily attendance rate as of Day 120 was 93.53%. Morgan County Schools daily attendance rate is currently 91.91%.
The intermediate school’s chronic absenteeism rate is 17.84% while Morgan County Schools chronic absenteeism rate is 25.57%.
Strategic plan goals
Huber said that by the end of the 2024-2025 school year, Warm Springs Intermediate School will increase proficiencies in both reading and math by 16% as measured by the WV General Summative Assessment as their first strategic plan goal.
Reducing chronic absenteeism was their second strategic plan goal. Huber said that by the end of the 2024-2025 school year, Warm Springs Intermediate School will decrease chronic absenteeism below 17% as measured by WVZoom.
Discipline
For school discipline, Huber said they had 153 Level 1 discipline incidents, 69 Level 2 incidents and 13 Level 3 incidents in the 2022-2023 school year for Grades 3-5. Level 1 discipline incidents are minor infractions and are mostly for disrespect, disruptiveness and inappropriate language.
In the 2023-2024 school year, there were 43 Level 1 discipline incidents and no Level 2, Level 3 and Level 4 incidents for third grade, she said.
Fourth grade had 74 Level 1 discipline incidents and no Level 2, Level 3 and Level 4 incidents, Huber said.
Fifth grade listed 162 Level 1 discipline incidents, 40 Level 2 incidents, and no Level 3 and Level 4 incidents.
School improvement
Teacher professional development is a long-term intermediate school improvement need, Huber said. Other long-term needs are parent engagement and parent education.
They want to work more with parents and grandparents on the dangers of social media. Huber noted that they’d had several suicide and threat assessments at the school.
Community involvement
School parent and community involvement included their Veterans Day breakfast, their third annual Winter Wonderland drive-thru Christmas celebration at Warm Springs Intermediate School and selling ornaments and popcorn as a fundraiser. The third grade’s 5K run at the school was “awesome,” Huber said.
