Evaluations at the end of each trimester are in depth and assess not only students’ academic performance but also depth of inquiry and sense of wonder, and formation of habits and responsibilities. Each middle school teacher writes two narrative paragraphs on each student taught, and each K-4 homeroom teacher writes three paragraphs.  We believe that adding the qualitative to the quantitative gives a far more complete and true assessment of each student.

 

After families receive these assessments, parents attend a conference after the first and second trimesters. The teachers meet with each student’s parents for a fifteen minute round table discussion. Parents of K-4 teachers meet with their homeroom teacher for fifteen minutes. These evaluations are designed to provide a detailed picture of the students as a whole person, providing encouragement and suggestions for the upcoming trimester.

 

JH Classical Academy offers free tutoring for students after school on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, called Lyceum. For students who need extra instruction or for students just entering the school, JH Classical Academy offers one to one tutoring with a classroom teacher. Many students moving from the public school benefit from tutoring in the areas that make our school classical: Latin, cursive writing, chess, grammar, memorization techniques and even organizational skills, in addition to the main disciplines.

 

The Iowa Test of Basic Skills is administered at JHCA every year in May. The test is norm reference based for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. The standardized test was developed by the College of Education of the University of Iowa in 1935. Administered by thousands of private and public schools around the country, ITBS is used to measure student progress from year-to-year in vocabulary, word analysis, reading comprehension, listening, language, mathematics, social studies, science, and sources of information. The comprehensive nature of the ITBS test makes it a better evaluation of our liberal arts curriculum than other commonly used standardized tests.

 

In 2016 74% of JH Classical Students scored in the 80^th percentile and above in reading. Teachers at JHCA analyze each student’s ITBS scores and target gaps in knowledge or particular student difficulty.

 

JH Classical is an official testing site for John Hopkins CTY. This will be our third year administering the exam and the first year we will open the opportunity to the entire community. CTY is “for students who score above the 95% percentile on nationally normed standardized tests or at the very top level of state tests.”

 

This optional “talent search” test, offered at JH Classical Academy, is a paper & pencil test for students in grades 2-8 in any Jackson Hole school. It reveals academic abilities and offers access to challenging summer courses through John Hopkins University for qualifying students. Last year three of our students tested high enough to earn spots in the CTY program!