HOUSTON – Students at Fleming Middle School completed their first semester under Houston Independent School District’s Superintendent Mike Miles’ New Education System model, which came with some success, but also several challenges.
KPRC 2 News Reporter Candace Burns and Digital Investigative Producer Ninfa Saavedra have been documenting the journey of students, teachers, and administrators at Fleming Middle School as they navigate the new curriculum.
After five months of steering through the new changes, Burns sat down with Fleming Middle School Principal Devin Adams to assess whether scores at the campus were improving under the NES model.
During the winter break, Adams developed a ‘State of the School’ data plan. The plan compares students’ beginning-of-the-school-year test scores to mid-year scores in social studies and the art of thinking classes. It also includes attendance, discipline, and the beginning-of-the-year testing results for math, science, and reading. Middle of the school year test scores were not yet available for math, science and reading, according to Adams. He said the students will start taking the second round of those exams on Jan. 16.
KPRC 2 will provide those test scores when they are made available by Principal Adams.
“We really wanted to ensure that there was high-quality instruction happening on campus,” Adams said. “Our goal is that students are growing, and they do at least a year and a half worth of growth, maybe even 1.7 instead of 1.5 by the end of the year.”
According to Adams, the goals for NES campuses, which consist of elementary schools, middle schools, and the three historically underperforming high schools that the chosen NES schools feed into, differ somewhat from campuses that are not NES-aligned.
“It’s not just the students at the NES campuses that are behind, we just happen to be the focus for this initiative right now. But across the district, there are students within the best of schools that are grade levels behind, so every teacher should work diligently to close the gaps,” Adams explained.
At the beginning of the school year, students in HISD took tests that administrators will use to measure growth throughout the entire school year.
Adams’ report broke the data down by grade level -- 6th, 7th and 8th. Adams showed the average beginning of school year (BOY) test scores, the average middle of the school year scores (MOY), and the percentage of students that passed at the beginning of the year and the middle of the year.
In social studies, the data revealed that in September, only 1% of the 6th-grade class passed at grade level (scoring 70% or higher), while in December, the passing rate increased to 5%. In non-NES schools in the district’s central division, there was an overall percentage of 24% passing in September and 25% in December. Across all NES campuses, the passing rate jumped from 3% in September to 22% in December.
“We kind of have been right under the average,” Adams explained. “Since the beginning of the year, there was a bit of a drop from when we got to the middle of the school year. But, there’s also that sixth grade has been much of a different group. They are not used to much of the structure that we’ve been asking them.”
Although the numbers show improvement in the sixth-grade class from September to December, Adams mentioned that compared to other NES-aligned campuses, the increase is not as significant as he had hoped to see.
“The average of all of NES campuses went up 20 points, as to ours (Fleming MS), we would expect, if we were aligned with them, to move up another 20 points as well,” Adams explained. “But that does not seem to be the case, so we are working with the administrator that’s over the social studies department to ensure that we are providing a lot more professional development for the teachers and identifying the underlying factors in the performances of those students.”
In seventh grade, the social studies data revealed a slight increase of just two percent in student test scores from September to December, whereas other NES-aligned campuses experienced a 12% increase. Non-NES campuses witnessed the most growth, with the passing rate increasing from 3% in September to 25% by December.
The most significant improvement came from the eighth graders at Fleming Middle School, who went from having no passing social studies scores in September to achieving a 20% passing rate in December.
“We had a lot of improvement there, and we are very excited about it,” Adams said.
The students were also tested in the art of thinking, an NES-specific course, and the data showed a drastic increase in students’ scores from the beginning of the school year to mid-year, across all grade levels.
“We are looking for students to grow three to five points because we have gaps to close,” Adams said. “There is going to be growth. There should be growth.”
Aside from academics, the data also explored attendance and disciplinary actions, which has been a known problem across several Houston Independent School District campuses.
Starting the year off strong, the total attendance from students at the beginning of the school year was 95.5% in August, which declined to 90.5% in December, bringing the average attendance rate for the first semester to 89.6%.
“That’s a pretty low attendance rate, considering that one out of every 10 kids is not coming to school every day,” Adams said. “So, what we are doing is working with the division leadership to assist us in coming up with a plan to identify support for the students, and figure out what services we could provide for the students to help them get to school.”
As for teachers, the attendance rate at the beginning of the school year was 97.1%. That number declined as the months passed, and eventually dropped to 87.8% in December, bringing the total attendance average to 93%.
Adams said although he does not have the exact number, he did see his teachers’ attendance rate improved drastically compared to last year. He said most of his absences came in December when teachers were sick or took vacations. He also added that he currently has no resignations, which is also a step forward compared to the previous years.
Disciplinary actions were broken into four categories: fighting, insubordination, safety violation, and chronic skipping.
Adams said he sees the most issues with his sixth graders, and surprisingly, has the opposite issue with his seventh graders.
“We have a very strong seventh-grade administrator and a strong seventh-grade team, and we have not seen those same issues or behaviors being displayed for the seventh graders as they were when they were in sixth grade,” Adams explained.
KPRC 2 has mentioned in previous reporting, and we also asked Adams, if he would correlate some of the students’ disciplinary actions to the NES model and its structure.
“Our sixth-grade group has been a tougher group than we’ve seen in a while. The structure in which they are being held accountable for is something that they are not used to,” Adams said.
Overall, Adams said he has set forth plans to improve in all areas and he believes he’s on the right track.
“I think that it was eye-opening for the teachers. Not everything is bad,” Adams said. “There are some fires we’ve got to put out, there are some things that kind of make you raise an eyebrow, like ‘whoa, I’m happy I see it now, rather than like whoa.’”
WATCH: Principal Adams details his plans to finish the school year off strong