The St. Joseph School District has released the student achievement portion of the Annual Performance Review.
Subjects covered under the report data include English, math, science and social studies.
“Generally we’re pleased with the scores on the new assessments which would encompass the English scores and the Math scores largely because we exceeded the national performance predictions that were generated from field test data,” said Dr. Kendra Lau, Assessment Dir. “We did not exceed the state-wide averages except for math in sixth grade.”
Statewide, Missouri students exceeded projected performance in the first assessment of new standards for English and math (science and social studies content standards were the same). The 2015 spring assessments represent the first time Missouri students were tested on new standards in English and math.
“While we celebrate this performance, the St. Joseph School District seeks to continually improve student achievement performance and thus, we acknowledge a need to grow,” Lau said. “The differences between the state and the SJSD were less than 5%. So while these percentage differences are real, they are at the same time realistic hurdles to be overcome with the hard work of improving student learning and achievement performance.”
When the data is broken into grade level achievement scores, the majority of the results (Percent Advanced or Proficient) trend slightly below the state results. Sixth grade math exceeded the
state average by 4.5%. In addition, Algebra 2 students exceeded the statewide average by 17.4%. However, a smaller group of students took the Algebra 2 test as compared with the other grade levels reported.
“Areas of focus for continued hard work include math in grades 7, 8, and Algebra 1, as the results show the St. Joseph School District performed under the state average by 8.7%, 9.2%, and 11.6% respectively,” Lau said. “While we are focused on these areas, the St. Joseph School District acknowledges students in the lower grades have been using the standards throughout their educational “careers” and thus may show higher levels of proficiency than students in the upper grades.”
She said this is due to students in the upper grades experiencing curricular changes during their careers and this type of trend (higher proficiency levels in elementary grades) was also observed statewide.
The district said it serves a diverse community and continues to work to close the performance gap among races and income levels. However, the results show that the gap in the St. Joseph School District continues at 11% percentage points. At the same time, this is less than the statewide gap of 13%.