Hip Hip Hooray It’s NWEA Day

Students celebrate strides

By: Kayla Kennedy

This year DT celebrated their success on Thursday, February 11th with movies, snacks, and activities. Students in junior high and high school who met at least one of their four NWEA testing goals were invited to participate in a fun-day celebration. 

“I was very excited to know that after all my hard work I got rewarded with a movie,” Katrina Caraway, Sophomore at DT.

This NWEA Fun Day is a way for the school to offer incentives for students to do their best on the NWEA testing. Oftentimes, students go through the motions and don't take standardized tests seriously, so DT wanted to begin to change the attitude about standardized testing and create a culture of fun and celebration when students do their best. The brain behind this idea was Principle, Mrs. Michaela Goracke, and the DT staff.

“I have organized fun days like this in the past at other schools. I wanted to do the movie portion of it, and then as a staff we brainstormed, and teachers really wanted to do the classroom activities. They wanted to simulate something similar to "Cardinal Connection" that has been done in the past here. So it really was a team effort,” said Goracke. 

Research shows that when students are involved in setting their academic goals they tend to perform better. Students at DT got to participate in the fun day when they met these requirements. Meeting or exceeding one score on the NWEA earned students a movie, 2 goals got popcorn, 3 goals got candy and all 4 NWEA goals got a drink. 

Goracke believes, “These tests are very important to us as a district. We use the data to drive instruction and inform teachers about where students are struggling and where our strengths are as a district.”

The process of setting up this fun day and organizing it was not an easy task. A lot of time and effort had to be put in to make this idea a reality.

“I organized getting the information together and getting students to sign up. Other teachers volunteered to help me! Miss Klier did the scheduling for me of the movies and classroom activities. Mr. Hite stepped in and counted up all of the popcorn, candy, and pop that I needed,” Goracke says. “Again, we are a team, and we worked together to make all of this come together.”