By Gretchen Phillips

With the annual Maryland School Assessments right around the corner, Mattawoman Middle School in Waldorf held pep rallies Friday, encouraging students in sixth, seventh and eighth grades to do their best on the state tests.

Maryland School Assessments are tests given to students in grades 3 through 8 in math and reading to satisfy requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Testing began Tuesday with math and reading tests beginning next week.

Students and school systems strive to achieve set standards on the state tests in order to test proficient or better; the percentages of students in each grade who must test at the proficient level to meet the standards for each school rise each year.

This year 85.9 percent of elementary students must meet proficient or higher in reading and 84.9 percent in math compared to 81.2 percent reading and 79.4 percent math from last year.

Math proficiency in middle school must reach 85.6 percent in reading and 78.6 percent in math this year. Last year's objective was 80.8 percent in reading and 71.4 percent in math last year.

"They've worked so hard this entire year," sixth-grade language arts teacher Michelle Davila said Friday at the sixth-grade pep rally.

"It's time to celebrate what they have accomplished before the tests even start. They have accomplished so much," Davila said about the rally.

During the rally, which was held in three parts, one for each grade, students competed against teachers in lighthearted contests.

At the sixth-graders' rally, students competed against teachers in a scooter relay and tug of war and Hula-Hoop contests.

The school band played during the rally and students and teachers cheered.

Ashleigh Delgado, 12, said the pep rally was "awesome" and that the purpose was to get students ready for the MSA.

"It gets you excited about it and helps you become more confident," she said.

At the eighth-grade rally, three students performed a variation of Wiz Khalifa's "Black and Yellow" changing the name to "Black and Teal," the school's colors, and changing the lyrics to refer to the MSA tests.

Boakum Vital, 14, said the song would act sort of like a theme song for students taking the tests.

In the song, Boakum, Valiq Rogers, 13, and Kennard Booze, 13, made reference to the school not making AYP in the past saying, "It's been a long time coming," and boasted that students would make the grade this year, "See that AYP, we about to make it, see that MSA, we about to take it," they rapped.

Eighth-graders and seventh-graders also participated in games and other pep rally activities.

Mattawoman Principal Douglass Dolan said students and teachers have worked hard at the school all year leading up to the tests, including adding a Learning Enrichment Achievement Program, where students spend time each morning focusing on math and reading.

Dolan said he is confident that his school will meet state standards this year.

Last year, six of 29 county public schools — Eva Turner, Mount Hope/Nanjemoy and C. Paul Barnhart elementary schools and Mattawoman, Theodore G. Davis and Benjamin Stoddert middle schools — missed progress goals.

Having missed three years in a row, Mattawoman is on the list of schools in need of improvement.

A school must meet state goals two years in a row to come off the list or risk sanctions from the state.

While students Friday were cheering after students beat teachers in the scooter relay, Joanne Olsen, a language arts teacher at Mattawoman, said, "Just like every part of the relay counted, every part of that test counts. Do your best on every part of the test."