Lincoln Public Schools students will get a trial run this year on the ACT, the college entrance exam now used to gauge Nebraska high school performance.
On Nov. 7, all sophomores and juniors will take a Pre-ACT test, five months before juniors take the real thing. Ninth-graders and seniors will get the day off, as will freshmen, sophomores and seniors during administration of the real thing to juniors in April.
This is the second year Nebraska has used the college entrance exam in place of statewide tests in high school, although LPS has been giving all juniors the test for several years.
The Pre-ACT test replaces the PLAN test by ACT that LPS used to give all sophomores. That was discontinued a few years ago, said Jane Stavem, associate superintendent for instruction.Â
The PLAN test was used for similar purposes: as a predictor of how students would do on the ACT, and as a way for counselors and teachers to help students choose courses, see weaknesses and identify areas of strength and interest.
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"It gives them a starting point," Stavem said. Â
Technically, the Pre-ACT isn't a practice test, since it's used as a formal assessment tool for the district. Â
But now that all students take the ACT -- and it's being used as a state test -- it fills that role and bolsters their chances of doing better on the real thing.
An email that went home to parents said 57 percent of students who take the ACT test more than once get higher scores.
The Pre-ACT isn’t included in the state’s contract to use the ACT as the state test, although prep materials are available to juniors for the entire year.
LPS officials wanted to give this year's juniors a chance to practice before the test, but in the future it will be given only to sophomores.
"We don't take adding an assessment lightly, but in the end it helps us maximize what happens during that time students are using to prepare for the ACT," Stavem said.
Too close for comfort
Nearly a week ago, Lincoln Board of Education member Kathy Danek was as close to a national tragedy as she’s ever been.
Too close.
Danek and her husband were attending an American Postal Workers training conference in Las Vegas when a gunman opened fire into a crowd attending a country music festival from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. Fifty-eight people died. Hundreds were injured.
Danek’s husband is a retired postal worker and Danek is the national president of the Auxiliary to the American Postal Workers Union.
They were staying at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel, about a mile down the strip. They'd gone to dinner with friends, then Danek and a girlfriend had gone for a walk. She got back to the hotel room about 10 p.m. and minutes later her husband told her someone was shooting people.
She called her friend to make sure she’d gotten back to her hotel room safely and the Lincoln couple watched the carnage unfold on local television.
“We just kept watching,†she said.
Officials locked down the Paris Las Vegas hotel until 4:30 a.m.
The next morning, Kathy Danek went downstairs to work at the conference. One conference attendee’s niece and friend were injured and another attendee was at the concert, where the person next to her was killed.
In the aftermath, people didn’t know what to say to each other, Danek said. Conference attendees wore black ribbons, held a moment of silence to honor the victims.
“You saw people you knew, you just hugged them,†she said. “You’re just grateful to be alive.â€
Conference organizers tried to get a bloodmobile to the hotel, but it couldn’t get there until they'd left, Danek said.
“I’m grateful that we were in the right place instead of the wrong place,†she said in a phone interview. “I know bad things happen. I don’t know when people will have the courage to have the conversation that needs to be had.â€
New classrooms for Pius X
By the fall of 2019, Pius X High School will have an additional 13 classrooms.
The $5.5 million project, which has been part of the school’s building plan for nearly seven years, will begin in the spring.
Donations will pay for the project, and donors raised about $3.3 million toward it in a month and a half this summer, according to a news release.
The new classroom addition will extend the northwest corner of the school into an area now used for parking, and additional parking will be added on the east side of the school.
The project will renovate existing classrooms and update the computer aided drafting and design, industrial arts, fine arts and consumer science classrooms.