At the Monday night Great Valley School Board meeting, Assistant Superintendent Dan Goffredo reviewed the district's performance in the first-ever round of Keystone Exams.

He summarised the results in an email to Malvern Patch:

Our junior class’s performance on the December Keystones was as follows:  

91% passed the Literature Exam

82% passed Algebra 1

74% passed the Biology

Each exam is comprised of two separate modules, and many Great Valley students passed one module but not the other, which Goffredo described as promising news leading into the May retests.

Since this is the first year of the Keystone Exams, juniors are taking the biology test one-and-a-half years after taking a biology course. In the future, they'll be able to take the test sooner after studying the material.

Several students took the Algebra 1 exam despite being currently enrolled in Algebra 1.

"We wanted them to get a taste of the exam and see what it was like," Goffredo said. "Had we elected to wait until May to test these students, our current proficiency rate would be higher."  

Students will be remediated—given extra instruction—for the Algebra and Literature retests during existing classes, through the writing and math help centers, and during 8th period activity time, Goffredo said.

If a student passes one module and fails the other, then he or she only has to pass the module that they failed. Like SAT scoring, Keystone scoring takes the highest score on each module and averages them, Goffredo said.