NE Unified District Receives 'Great' Rating

The Nebraska Unified District #1 recently received results on AQuESTT, which stands for Accountability for a Quality Education System Today & Tomorrow.

AQuESTT allows schools to focus on educational equity for their students, ensuring all students across backgrounds and circumstances have access and opportunities for success. AQuESTT annually classifies schools and districts as excellent, great, good, or needs improvement.

A breakdown of statewide preliminary classification indicated that 141 or 12.70 percent of schools were classified excellent, 427 or 38.47 percent were great, 386 or 34.77 percent were good, and 156 or 14.05 percent were designated as in need of improvement.

NE Unified #1 is classified as “Great” overall. The state further classifies each school into separate grade level designations. Classifications for these are Clearwater Elementary- Great, Clearwater Middle School- Great, Clearwater High School- Great, Orchard Elementary- Great, Orchard Middle School- Good, Orchard High School- Excellent, Verdigre Elementary- Excellent, Verdigre Middle School- Excellent, and Verdigre High School- Great.

Nebraska Student-Centered Assessment System (NSCAS) results were also recently released.

NSCAS English Language Arts (ELA) and NSCAS Mathematics, rigorous assessments with high expectations for college and career readiness, were given in grades three through eight, and the NSCAS Science assessment was given in grades five and eight. Nebraska students continue to show growth and improvement across grade levels. Statewide, more than half of students are meeting or exceeding expectations in math, ELA, and science. The NSCAS ACT is given to all Nebraska juniors statewide and 50 percent or more are on track or meeting ACT benchmarks.

Our district had the following results. In grades 3-8 on the NSCAS English Language Arts (ELA) and Math assessments we scored above the state average. In ELA our district had 52% proficiency as compared to the state average of 51%. In Math our students scored at 64% proficiency as compared to the state average of 51%. On the grades 5-8 NSCAS Science assessments our district had a 79% proficiency as compared to the state average of 68%. The 11th graders took the NSCAS ACT as their state assessment. In ELA they scored at 76% proficiency. In Math they were at 68% proficiency, and in Science they were at 62% proficiency.

State averages for 11th grade were ELA-50%, Math-50%, and Science-54%.

The results of classification and assessment data can be found on the Nebraska Education Profile (NEP). School and district snapshots provide a quick look at accountability performance while full data profiles provide deeper information and include all Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)-required components. Comparisons can also be made of schools and districts to similar peers in the state. Detailed information on the AQuESTT system is available at aquestt.com.
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The AQuESTT report on the classification of schools and districts and assessment results are available at: nep.education.ne.gov.