The State Board of Education and Nebraska Department of Education developed a state accountability system as required by state law 79-760.06. The State Board of Education adopted a system that is based on student scale scores within grades, buildings and districts. The system, Nebraska Performance Accountability (NePAS), is intended to inform educators, parents, school board members, community members and policymakers about the learning progress of Nebraska schools and school districts.

Key Components of NePAS:

1) Nebraska Performance Accountability System (NePAS), is effective for the first time this year.

2) The basis of the new accountability system is NeSA statewide test results, which indicate student learning based on state standards developed to measure career and college readiness.

3) The state’s goal for students is that they will be college and career ready when they graduate so they have a successful work, military and/or college experience.

4) The purpose of NePAS is to inform policy makers, the public and school officials about school district performance.

5) The new accountability system provides information about the progress of districts by looking at state test scale scores in a category

called STATUS as well as IMPROVEMENT and GROWTH.

6) NePAS ranks districts by the following grade level configurations:

Elementary grade-level configuration (grades 3-5)

Middle level grade-level configuration (grades 6-8)

Secondary grade-level configuration (grades 9-12)

District configuration (grades 3-12)

GRADUATION RATE- ranks districts by comparing the percentage of high school graduates.

What the rankings mean: The NePAS results rank school districts from 1 to 249 in reading, math, science, and writing.  If you ranked 2 on the writing test you were the second highest ranked of the 249 school districts in Nebraska. If you ranked 249 you were the lowest ranked school in Nebraska.

Hay Springs Schools scored quite well on all NePAS tests – scores were published in the school newsletter.  When you compare all school districts in Nebraska from Omaha to Hay Springs our test scores and ranking was outstanding.  We are all proud of our student success, quality teaching, and the overall quality of the education provided in Hay Springs Public Schools.

After studying states of matter in Science class the first graders created a graphic organizer showing examples of the three states of matter. They were created using Inspiration, a visual mapping and organizing program that has many applications for class use. Here are a couple of examples: