DANVILLE — There’s a lot riding on the results of this week’s Illinois Standards Achievement Tests, but you wouldn’t know it walking the halls of Danville District 118 elementary and middle schools.

At the halfway point of testing Wednesday, teachers and administrators say they’ve done their best to keep the pressure off students.

“I think it’s even worse now because (students) know how it affects everything,” said Cannon Elementary Principal Kim Pabst. “We don’t want the kids to feel stressed; we want them to feel comfortable taking it.”

Each school has taken extra measures to encourage students and have them support each other, and provided the message: Keep you pencil sharpened, relax and show everyone how much you’ve learned.

Halls are festooned with posters and supportive slogans and daily special events are designed to make the week-long, two-times-a-day test less stressful.

“Our goal this year was to talk about (ISATs) all year,” said Pabst. “We didn’t want it to just sneak up and appear all of a sudden in March. In the past couple of weeks we’ve tried to make it more fun.”

Cannon joined most other attendance centers in offering snacks to students before each day’s tests.

East Park Elementary and a few other schools reached out to parents as well. In presentations given to third-, fourthand fifth-grade parents last week, school officials offered test-preparation tips and sample questions for families to practice together.

“A lot of times parents don’t understand the stakes involved,” said East Park Principal Chris Rice. “We just took some time to talk about testing strategies and the importance of eating a good breakfast and getting a good night’s sleep.”

The stakes are indeed high, with results from the tests the largest factor in determining a school’s Annual Yearly Progress rate and whether it is placed on state warning lists under the No Child Left Behind Act. Attendance and graduation rates are also factored.

The ISAT tests writing and math skills in grades 3, 5, 6 and 8 and science learning for fourth and seventh graders. Two daily tests run about 45 minutes each and there is one additional day of testing next week.

“You certainly want your building in test mode,” said Diane Hampel, District 118’s director of educational support. “But this is more a judge of the schools than the students. This is what Illinois districts are judged by.”

She said while teachers cover specific information likely to appear on the test through the course of the year, much of the test is subjective enough to test a student’s logical development as well.

“We teach to the standards all year long,” Hampel said, “but it’s not always a multiple choice question.”

She said “extended response” and “story” questions are large components of the test.

“They’re required to read and write a lot,” she added. “They’re encouraged to put their own ideas into their answers. That’s really a higher order of thinking. Parents are always amazed at how hard it is.”

East Park’s Rice said that’s why schools have worked so hard to take the pressure off students, pushing the idea it’s just another school day as much as possible.

“This test will be very similar to the things we’ve seen all year in the classroom,” Rice said. “We’re telling them this is their chance to shine.”

Southwest Elementary Principal John Hart said the positive reinforcement -like daily delivery of treats from the younger-age classes and hallway displays touting the level at which the school “rocks” -has had a noticeable affect on students.

“I have kids stopping me in the hall all day saying how well they’ve done,” he said. “I’ve never had a group of kids so excited to tell me how they’re doing. And now the younger kids can’t wait to be one of the older kids who get to take the test.”

All of the administrators voiced concern over meeting AYP standards, which raises from 70 percent meeting or exceeding NCLB criteria to 77.5 percent his year. Two district schools, Meade Park Elementary and North Ridge Middle School, are al-ready on the early warning list.

“It’s a quickly moving target,” Hampel said, noting early district testing is pointing to likely improvement thanks to the addition of four federally funded reading facilitators this school year. The school plans to add four more next year to cover each center.

The facilitators track individual student reading data, group students according to skill, then focus on problem areas during one-on-one sessions.

“I do believe it’s a sound process,” she said of the ISAT testing process, which announces results in June. “It’s a science. We could show some great growth this year.”

But even with “great” growth, not hitting the 7.5 percent improvement mark, measured through all categories of students, would mean not making AYP requirements.

“Any improvement is improvement to us,” said Cannon’s Pabst. “The children and the teachers have worked really hard this year and I hope to see a benefit.”

Added Rice, “You hope for the best on ISAT and you want to make AYP, but this gives us a chance to monitor our growth and see where we’re at. I know we’ve shown a lot of growth.”