Petal High School Juniors Achieve Major ACT® Score Improvements in February

PETAL, Miss., April 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Jumpstart Test Prep recently released the ACT^® improvement results from Petal High School (PHS), whose junior class used the program to prepare for the state-administered February 2021 ACT® exam (American College Testing). Following completion of Jumpstart's Complete English ACT prep review, 62 percent of the students with a prior English ACT score improved an average +3.10 points above their best prior attempt.

Karla Lefan, an English teacher at PHS who taught the Jumpstart program, says, "It was extremely beneficial for our students. With the completion of the Jumpstart program, my students have grown so much; one student beamed as his score showed he could potentially grow by as many as 12 points!" Natalie Sumrall also led the review from her classroom and had similar comments: "I really liked that it covered all the skills that are on the ACT® English section because for me to review all those things in class is impossible. There are too many standards for me to go over that they learn at the lower grade level, yet they needed the review." She says that one of her students, with a 504 Plan due to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), significantly improved by being able to "watch the modules and re-watch the modules," and that Jumpstart really is "something special." Jamie Sproles is another teacher who led the Jumpstart Review and says Jumpstart is most beneficial because of, "The fact that it's lessons and then questions, and that once they learn a rule, they review it with an ACT-style multiple choice question which helps them directly apply that knowledge." As teachers, they highly recommend that Jumpstart Test Prep be implemented in schools across the State of Mississippi and have hopes that it will be continued at Petal High School in the coming years. Sproles says, "It's one of the most successful ways for our students to review for their ACT and it proved to be a win."

Students also provided their thoughts about the program. On his second ACT® attempt, PHS junior Sam Bullock improved his English sub-score +12 points and his composite score +7 points. He says, "It helped out a lot. I wasn't really good at English but Jumpstart made it seem a lot easier and helped me improve. I wasn't as stressed - I knew how to time myself. Jumpstart was most beneficial because it reviewed things I hadn't seen in a while and didn't go over as much." PHS junior Jewel Alexander agrees, as her English sub-score also rose +12 points, and she improved her composite score +8 points over her prior attempt. "Jumpstart helped me understand the questions on the ACT® and it introduced topics to me that I didn't really know before." She tells future students to "Pace yourselves and just do it because once you see the difference it's going to be worth it."

Jumpstart Test Prep is an online review program based on over 60 years of work by Dot McClendon, a legendary educator and Mississippi's 19-year STAR teacher hall-of-fame inductee. "As a teacher at The Mississippi School of the Arts and several other schools during my career, I was able to help guide the preparation of students in person," said McClendon. "Now through our online, on-demand video review, students in PHS classrooms, as well as classrooms around the country, around the breakfast table, or on the couch at home, are able to benefit from our approach."

All juniors at PHS had access to the following resources:

• Expert content review and practice, along with test-taking tips and strategies delivered in the classroom via streaming video
• Online, on-demand, 5-hour review (8 modules, approximately 40 minutes each) of English content tested by the ACT® that could be led from the classroom or used individually by students
• Consumable student workbooks for each subject area to be completed in conjunction with lecture content and later used as a student study guide
• Online assessments for the English review area which linked students back to their weaker areas reviewed in the Jumpstart module content

School administrators utilized an online dashboard reflecting the video module completion progress of teachers assigned to proctor the review and/or individual student progress.

More information about Jumpstart Test Prep can be found at www.jumpstarttestprep.com. 

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Related Images

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Petal High School's Most Improved Juniors
Multiple Petal High School Juniors realized major ACT® improvements recently, after preparing with Jumpstart Test Prep. L to R: Sam Bullock and Jewel Alexander.

Related Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLOGekxLCyM

SOURCE Jumpstart Test Prep