Sam Houston science teacher confident ahead of TAKS testing

By Charles Iyoho, News Messenger
Wednesday, March 19, 2008

A Sam Houston Middle School science instructor says she remains unnerved ahead of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) tests, and that she's confident her science classes will rise to the occasion when testing begins in a little less than a month and a half.

"I'm not really nervous. You know you can always improve, but I always try to teach the kids to the best of my ability and I feel that we're going to have them pretty solid," said Sam Houston fifth grade science teacher Sarah Jones, who moved from J.H. Moore Elementary School to teach at the middle school level a year ago.

"I love science and I want the students to really get it."

Last week, Sam Houston students and teachers paid a visit to the Caddo Lake State Park in Karnack to reinforce some of the scientific terminologies and concepts the students had learned ahead of the May 1 exam date.

At the Caddo Lake site, students went through a variety of "stations" and engaged in a number of activities, based on the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) guidelines, a set of keys and concepts that students are expected to learn before the TAKS testing commences.

Ms. Jones said the group primarily focused on plant and animal life and were at the site from about 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

"Science is not really pushed until they get into the fifth grade," she said.

"This is the first time they have to take a science TAKS test and so we have several kids that can come up, not having hardly any science background and so we have to go back and retrace and know what we need to relearn, what we need to reinforce and what we review," Ms. Jones said.

The TAKS exam is a standardized test taken annually by students throughout the state and is used as a means to determine whether a student is prepared to move up to the next grade level.

The test was implemented in 2003, according to the Texas Education Agency's official Web site.

"I saw that there are some many situations at the elementary level where the students focused so much on how to read and learn math, but they don't have a lot of time to do all the science experiments and things like that and so I really wanted to help those kids and get them where they need to be," Ms. Jones said.

According to statistics from the TEA's Web site, 77 percent of the students in Texas, who took the science TAKS test in April 2007, passed the exam — a 2 percent increase from April 2006 that saw 75 percent of Texas students pass the test.

The results further suggested that 31 percent of the students earned commended performances in April 2007, a 7 percent increase from the previous year.
Sam Houston was deemed a "Recognized" institution by the TEA during the 2000-01 academic year, the school's Web site stated.

Courtney Case/ News Messenger

USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service workers Ross Brown, Brad Kieschnick and Ryan Walser talk to a group of Sam Houston Middle School students about soil, tree, and water conservation during a field trip at Caddo Lake State Park in Uncertain.

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