Moon Area School Board Discusses New State Assessment Tests

Students in the will have to wait a bit longer to see the final academic calendar for this school year. 

Superintendant Donna Milanovich said the board will vote on a revised calendar in the next several weeks. She said she is waiting to see if inclement weather forces more class cancellations before changing the calendar. 

"I'm just hoping it doesn't snow again," she said. "We're just going to wait and see." 

The board must vote to revise the academic calendar to schedule a make-up day for Feb. 22, when classes were cancelled due to a . 

In December, the district  its calendar to accommodate 13 days of classes missed during a teachers strike.

The school year now is scheduled to end on June 10. The district earlier designated April 22 as its only make-up day for the school year, but it has cancelled two days of classes since the strike. 

Also last night at its monthly workshop meeting, the board approved a motion to pay Pittsburgh-based firm Gregg Staffing Solutions to oversee the removal of all remaining equipment at the old high school facility. The cost is not to exceed $10,000.

The board also approved the replacement of a defective Edpac air conditioning unit in Moon Area Middle School, at a cost of $15,000 to be paid from the district's capital reserve fund.

Jeffrey Zollars, district director of curriculum, gave a presentation at the meeting on the upcoming Keystone Assessment tests, which state lawmakers have proposed as replacements for the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests in 2015. 

The assessments will be required for the graduating class of 2015. Students will be tested on biology, Algebra I, English composition and literature, and they will be required to pass the exams before graduating from Pennsylvania high schools. 

The PSSA assessments currently in use test students in reading, writing and math. 

"This is a long-term plan," Zollars said. "It adds value beyond the PSSA. You have students who take the PSSA who may not be showing proficiency in biology and literature in composition."