East High Celebrates Success with Field Day
The students at East High School had Field Day today because they had a field day last year when they took the Iowa Assessment (formerly the Iowa Test of Educational Development or ITED) exams.
The school’s administration promised them then that if they achieved certain goals they’d be rewarded with a celebration this fall after the scores were in. This morning was that celebration as more than 2,000 students were treated to what amounted to a two-hour recess deluxe at the school’s Williams Stadium.
The dunk tank was a popular stop for the students. How many times do you get a chance to splash your “favorite” teacher? Other attractions included an inflatable obstacle course and jousting pit. There was laser tag, water ballooning, a photo booth, a fortune teller and hula-hooping.
Radio station KISS 107FM was there to lend an ambience apropos of the occasion.
East principal Steve Johns believes that “what’s rewarded will be repeated.” If he’s right about that, then Field Day at East will become an annual event. He referred to it as such when he briefly addressed the bleachers full of students before turning them loose to enjoy the fruits of their dramatically increased test scores. How dramatic? The classes of both 2013 and 2014 (current seniors and juniors) registered double digit spikes in proficiency levels across the board in reading, science and math. And those escalated numbers were in addition to the rise in average daily attendance that won the Scarlet a regional championship in last fall’s Get Schooled Attendance Challenge.
Field Day was a school-wide event. Johns and East School Improvement Leader Kris Byam want the freshmen who weren’t yet attending East when the celebrated test scores were achieved to experience what will happen when they rack up their own gaudy numbers later this year. You couldn’t tell one class from another this morning. It looked like they all quickly got the hang of it. There may be more where Field Day 2012 came from.
