Ten Sleep 'Aspire's to new heights on testing

TEN SLEEP – During the Ten Sleep School Board’s monthly meeting Monday night Ten Sleep School Principal Russell Budmayr reported to the board the Aspire testing results.

“We are all familiar with the juniors taking the ACT test, well our freshmen and sophomores take the Aspire test and its part of the ACT. (Grades) three through eight takes our PAWS test, that’s our state test. Ninth and 10th graders take the Aspire and our 11th graders take the ACT,” Budmayr explained.

Budmayr was very pleased with the ninth-grade Aspire scores. “I’ll be the first one to admit when I’m disappointed in something but I tell you that I am really impressed,” Budmayr stated.

He reported that, Washakie County School District No. 2, Ten Sleep, was third in the state on ninth-grade math and English. In reading they were fifth in the state and in science they were fourth in the state.

“Putting them all together in the composite we were second in the state,” Budmayr said. “Sometimes I get worried that we get used to scoring high, that we just start expecting it. I think that it’s pretty impressive, what our students and teachers are doing. That was last year’s ninth-graders, this year’s tenth-graders,” he added.

The 10th grade did well also but one subject was noted for improvement. “In 10th grade in math we were first in the state. We were 26th in English and that’s mostly grammar and we will be talking with our English teacher again to selectively target areas where we have, need, room for improvement. In reading we were 12th in the state. Science we were 18th. The composite score we were seventh in the state,” Budmayr stated. “Like I say out of 48 districts sometimes I think, I get a little spoiled and I start expecting it and I just want to reiterate how impressed I am with our students and our teachers for the hard work that they do,” he added.