Owsley County Elementary celebrates MAP growth with pie-the-teachers reward
Owsley County Elementary turned 300 points of MAP growth into a pie fight, giving fifth graders a visible reward just days before state testing begins.
Fifth graders at Owsley County Elementary earned a messy payoff for their MAP growth, and the winning homeroom got to pie their teachers after the grade posted more than 300 points of total improvement.
The celebration, shared on the school’s live feed, turned a testing benchmark into something students could see and remember. Because the fifth grade grew by more than 300 points overall, everyone got pie, widening the reward beyond one homeroom and turning the moment into a schoolwide morale boost rather than a narrow competition.
That matters at Owsley County Elementary because the numbers behind the celebration are still modest. The school’s own summary lists K-5 proficiency at 19% in reading and 11% in math, with 3% distinguished in each subject. In that context, growth is not a side note. It is the clearest sign that classroom effort is moving students forward, even when proficiency rates remain a challenge.
Owsley County Elementary, in Booneville, serves grades PK-5 under principal Sylvia McIntosh. Its staff page also lists instructors including Julia Durbin-Bishop, Holly Wilder and Amanda Brown. Outside profiles describe a school with about 425 students, a 10-to-1 student-teacher ratio, 42 full-time teachers and 74% of students identified as economically disadvantaged. Those figures help explain why visible, shared celebrations can carry real weight in a building where every point of growth matters.
The school’s approach also lines up with how MAP Growth is designed to work. NWEA describes it as a K-12 assessment built to measure student growth and point teachers toward the next instructional steps, which makes a total-gain celebration more than a novelty. At Owsley County Elementary, the pie-the-teachers reward gave students a tangible link between effort and outcome.
The timing added to the significance. Owsley County School District said Kentucky Summative Assessment testing for grades 3-5 was scheduled to begin Wednesday, May 6, 2026, putting the MAP celebration right before a key stretch of spring testing. The school has also shown a knack for playful, public traditions that make learning memorable. In 2024, Kentucky Teacher described Julia Durbin-Bishop’s “Pickle Party” classroom tradition, and the district later noted that Kevin Dailey, the 2024 Kentucky Teacher of the Year, visited her classroom.
For Owsley County families, the message was clear: the school is trying to make academic progress visible, celebratory and shared. In a small district where test gains can shape confidence as much as scores, 300 points of growth and a few pies to the face became a statement about momentum.
Know something we missed? Have a correction or additional information?
Submit a Tip
