Burlington Schools recognized for ACT scores

In the last month, the Burlington Schools have received three honors.
In September, the ACT scores for the senior class of 2024 were released and Burlington ranked first in the state of Wyoming with a composite score of 23.3. This is the 12th year in a row that Burlington has ranked as one of the top three schools in the state and is its seventh No. 1 ranking. This current senior class has the third highest score since the ACT was given to all students in Wyoming, trailing only Burlington’s 2018 and 2020 classes. Burlington also has the top six ACT scores ever recorded in Wyoming.
Burlington High School Principal Autumn Tempany states “Ryan Olson teaches the ACT Prep Class in Burlington and has been the Middle and High School Improvement Team leader for a number of years, which means he’s enthusiastically been leading these efforts.”
Olson presented on Monday at a state conference and shared some of the school improvement and ACT practices.
“For the past several years, we’ve been making ACT passages a part of our school improvement plan. It helps our kids qualify for Hathaway and other scholarships and gives them more options for their post-graduation plans. But more importantly, they get skills that universities and businesses want from high school graduates. These skills in the areas of English, math, reading and science help our students do well on our other assessments, like WyTOPP and hopefully in their normal class subjects,” said Olson.
Students from 6th to 12th grade are given weekly passages and data is tracked in different ways, allowing the school to get a picture on the student’s strengths and weaknesses. Olson is good at adding fun into the equation and adds rewards and competitions into the practice. “Rewards, normally in the form of ice cream, are given to students who improve from week to week. Classes compare with each other, as well as fun comparisons, like boys versus girls, Chevy versus Ford lovers and Country versus Pop music listeners. Brining some recognition, as well as some friendly competition keeps things interesting,” said Olson. “I’ve always felt success on the test comes from two areas: reading and confidence. Hopefully consistent, steady practice with these passages gives kids the skills to do well on this, as well as their other schoolwork. Once students realize what they’re able to do, it can literally change their lives. I’ve seen students raise their score a couple of points and be able to go to colleges they didn’t think they had a chance to attend and now have ways to pay for it.”
The school also offers an ACT Prep class that students can take. “We’ve found that students that sign up for the class average a 4.7-point improvement on their composite score. My own daughter raised her score up 9 points and another student raised his score up 11 points. These raised scores can have life changing positive ramifications,” said Olson.
For those who argue that they are teaching to a test, Olson disagrees. “We’re teaching kids how to correctly use commas, figure out averages and percentages, look for main ideas in a reading passage and quickly grab useful information from charts and graphs. These skills are all skills high school graduates should have. So much of the credit needs to go to teachers who take their job seriously and care about their students’ improvement. And of course, it all starts with students who value their education and getting better each day,” said Olson.
These successes have been noticed by many on the state and national level.
Burlington was recognized as an “ACT Champion” and was recently recognized by the state as a consistently high performing school based on WyTOPP performance, graduation rates, achievement rates, and growth rates in addition to ACT performance over a number of years. The Wyoming State Board of Education partnered with Marzano Research to conduct a study of the state accountability system for schools, also known as the Wyoming Accountability in Education Act (WAEA). Burlington High School was one of 10 positive outlier schools (schools that outperform other schools with similar student demographics) that were chosen to participate.
The U.S. News and World Report has recently come out with their school rankings and Burlington High School ranked number one in schools in Wyoming and Burlington Middle School tied for first with Big Horn Middle School. Schools are ranked on their performance on state-required tests, graduation and how well they prepare students for high school and college.
“We are so excited to be earning these honors and I believe it’s a testament to the hard work of our teachers and students as well as having very supportive parents and community members,” said Tempany.