Sharpsville Area School District is one of 33 districts in the state -- and the only one in Mercer County -- to participate in a three-year pilot project to access a Web-based assessment analysis tool.

In June, the school board approved participating in the Pennsylvania Added Assessment System project, or PVAAS, a research-based, statistical analysis system that studies a school's historical assessment data to determine the school's influence on student learning.

The project, based on the research of Dr. William L. Sanders and his colleagues at the Value Added Research and Assessment Center at the University of Tennessee, represents about 100,000 students from urban, rural and suburban schools that have standardized assessments for at least third through eighth grade.

"It's dealing with data-driven decision making," said Sharpsville Assistant Superintendent Dr. Douglas R. Hazlett. "It takes our historical assessment data and puts it in a more meaningful fashion."

The program takes a school's assessment data, such as PSSA and Terra Nova scores, crunches the numbers and looks at the information historically, Hazlett said. The information then can be used to improve instruction, he said.

Some of the reasons Sharpsville chose to participate in the program are because it is consistent with the district's strategic plan, it will assist in re-writing the curriculum, it will measure teacher accountability and it will aid in grant-writing.

The program costs nothing to the district, but the district gets incentive money for participating, Hazlett said. The amount of money the district receives depends on how many districts participate in the project, he said.

Hazlett and Kent Williams, district instructional technology coordinator, recently did a presentation on PVAAS at the Governor's Institute for Educators at Gannon University in Erie. They did the same presentation at the school board's work session on Monday.

"I wanted to give them the big picture so they had a road map of where we are going," said Hazlett, adding he will also speak to teachers at each school building about the project.

Hazlett and Williams attended the Governor's Institute for data-driven decision-making, which ties in with PVAAS.

"It was a great experience," Hazlett said. "We weren't sure what we were going to get into at the Governor's Institute, but it was very worthwhile. It was a very positive experience and it fit in with what we are doing."

You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Erin Remai at eremai@sharonherald.com.