Three from Horizon ace sections of WASL test

Eighth-grade student Courtney Ramsey hasn’t received less than a 4.0 grade-point average since beginning her career at Horizon Middle School three years ago.

Matt Haskins, also an eighth-grader, always gets straight-As. Another classmate, Wyatt Beaulieu, 13, doesn’t consider himself a “smarty-pants,” but still tallies up the As and Bs.

So it’s not surprising that the three students received perfect scores on two out of three sections of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning as seventh-graders last year. The students were recognized at an assembly at the school on Thursday for their hard work.

“It’s very unusual, and a first for us,” said Horizon Principal Denis Rusca. “It’s quite an accomplishment for those students.”

Ramsey, Haskins and Beaulieu are the only three students in all of the Central Valley School District’s five middle schools to get a perfect score in at least two areas on the high-stakes test.

The test, also known as the WASL, is the state’s answer to the federal No Child Left Behind law. It is administered to students in grades four, seven and 10 each year in the areas of reading, writing and math.

“I thought I did horrible on the math,” Ramsey said this week.

After taking the test, Ramsey said she talked to her friends about one of the questions and, “I was the only one with a different answer.”

Turns out, she was the one with the right answer.

Ramsey was the only seventh-grade student in the Central Valley School District, and one of only 14 students statewide who received a perfect score in math.

“It is quite rare,” said Bill Ash, assessment coordinator for the district. While the district doesn’t track all the numbers for students with perfect scores, those numbers were available from the state, Ash said.

“We usually track the scores for the students who don’t do well because we need to help them,” Ash said.

Statewide, there were only 469 seventh-grade students who scored perfect in reading statewide, and 3,258 with a perfect score in writing, Ash said. In Central Valley, there were only eight students with a perfect score in reading.

Overall, 74 percent of Horizon students passed all three sections on the test.

The three Horizon students with perfect scores in two areas of the test said they didn’t really do anything special to prepare, and felt lucky to have received the scores they did.

Haskins said he reviewed “how to make a good essay,” before the test, and admitted to guessing on at least one answer. Beaulieu said he just tried to remember all the things he had learned.

Ramsey said it was regular work with WASL-type questions that helped her.

“Ever since the sixth grade we’ve had a WASL-prompt weekly,” Ramsey said. “You have to be able to explain yourself.”