ACT scores continue to rise at York; specifically, with a dramatic increase in the English section that rose an eighth of a point. While this statistic might not be staggering, it is actually quite significant in terms of school improvement. Only a few years ago, the ACT scores at York were dropping to the point where it was almost falling below the Common Core standards.

“It’s not just York High School, everything we’ve done is district wide,” said Dr. Christopher Covino, Assistant Principal for Curriculum & Instruction. “When you think of the last five years at York, you have to think of the three years prior in the middle schools.”

Covino says students understand very early that the ACT is important. Instead of just studying for the ACT itself, the district tries to apply concepts in classes everyday.

“Teachers were consciously working together to come up with ideas to address kids struggling,” said Ryan Doherty, English department chair. “They were working as a team, a group of dedicated teachers. The teachers are not just focused on their students, they want to see improvement in everybody.”

The teachers have chosen skills they will focus on grade by grade. The skills they focus on for one class will be different for the next class. There will never be a patterned curriculum as it changes depending on the class each year.

“[We are] always looking for ways to improve it,” said Doherty. “Over the summer, teams choose skills that we found kids still struggle with last year so we can focus on it this year.”

Teachers are especially focusing on skills on a daily basis.

“Punctuation, more effort in grammar exercises, and going back to foundation sentence rules [are the skills we focus on],” said Jessica Noble, English 11 and AP Language teacher. “Teachers are finding ways to expose grammar so students will recognize it on the ACT.”

Noble tries to apply some sort of English skill everyday so students are familiarized when test time comes. During the spring, all English teachers do actual ACT prep in the classroom.

Along with the teachers’ efforts to improve the ACT, students have been putting in a lot of effort as well; students have already started studying for the ACT. Whether it is tutoring at Huntington Learning Center or preparing at home, students at York have been trying to get a good ACT score.

The reason for such motivation is because in Elmhurst, students are expected to go to college in order to further their education. Because of those expectations, students are focusing on their ACT test taking skills in order to prepare for college. As a result, students have been attending college at a high rate. 

“When a community expects the kids to go to college, the kids take the test more seriously,” said Doherty.

York has made a lot of improvement throughout the years and continues to do so this year. As scores continues to rise it is very important that York continues to push and never settle.