Bedford School Board is presented benchmark scores and … – Lynchburg News and Advance

Bedford County Public Schools’ staff presented school board members with changes to programs of studies for the 2024-25 school year, which includes course deletions, course modifications and course additions.

The instruction team met with principals and counselors to receive feedback on the changes.

Shawn Trosper, the division’s director of curriculum and instruction, said over the past two years, 24 new courses have been proposed and 16 of those courses involved career and technical education, or CTE courses.

The new changes, according to Trosper, include: world geography being offered to eighth grade students as a high school credit, world history I being offered to ninth grade students, physical science being offered in eighth grade and tested on the eighth grade science SOL, and earth science moving to the high school as an elective after biology or environmental science.

New courses include: college U.S. history in grade 11 as a dual enrollment opportunity; entertainment, design and technology for a CTE course for fine arts students; marketing management for grades 11 and 12; sports and entertainment management for grades 11 and 12 which is another form of a marketing class; ecology and environmental management for grades 9 to 12 which is an agricultural sequence, according to Trosper.

Trosper explained when a student previously signed up for AP Government their senior year, they would take comparative government and U.S. Government and politics.

In the proposal, however, those two subjects will be separated into different courses.

Due to low enrollment in the courses, Trosper explained applied mathematics, data science and American sign language will be removed as presented in the proposal.

The board did not vote on the proposed changes, however it will be an action item on the agenda in its December meeting.

The board also received first quarter benchmark scores, which Superintendent Marc Bergin said were new to students and teachers this year.

The division has a membership with the comprehensive instructional program or CIP Education, a group of public school divisions in the state working collaboratively to improve student achievement as measured by the Virginia Standards of Learning Assessments.

Students in the county completed these CIP assessments along with other school divisions in the program which Bergin said is “considerably more rigorous” than quarterly assessments they have used in the past.

Bergin said the key advantage of the assessments are its “strong and proven correlation” with SOL assessments.

Bergin added teachers have had these results for several weeks now to reflect on the progress of individual students and to share that information with parents at parent teacher conferences; and principals also have been reviewing the results for their school to determine areas of strength and concerns.

Trosper presented the results with an analysis of core subject areas:

English: elementary overall pass rate was 68%, 66% for middle school and 62% for high school;

Math: elementary school overall pass rate is 76%, 62% for middle school and 67% for high school;

Science for grades 4 and 5 only, the overall division pass rate was 79%;

And social studies, for Virginia studies only, the overall division pass rate was 76%.

“I love the fact that this gives us such detailed information and that we’re seeing some positive trends especially with subgroups that we know are struggling,” District 1 School Board Member Susan Mele said of the data report.