STAAR passing rate better than state

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Overall attendance good

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STAAR results from last school year are mixed, special program coordinator Emma Hudson said at Monday’s Miller Grove meeting, but the upside is the district maintained a good passing rate and had a larger portion of students meet their grade level standard than the region and state.

“We’ve now accomplished the Approaches [passing grade] and the Meets [standard met grade],” Hudson said. “So now we want to get to the Masters [above grade level]. We want to be above the region and the state on that.”

There were worries about a ‘COVID slide’ caused by the extended closure during the 2019-2020 school year and the uncertainty surrounding 2020- 2021. Drops in scores were expected, and while some drops are noticeable, the reading test results fared better due to district learning programs.

“In reading, I really think the blended learning grant is really making a difference,” Hudson said. “It’s really targeting the reading. It’s allowing them to do more, and now we need to start targeting the math side of it.”

Using Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) testing which can roughly predict STAAR results, Hudson and elementary principal Jaime Fox saw that the younger grades, especially the kindergarten and first grades of 2020, took the hardest hits academically. Many were not meeting grade level, Hudson said.

“This goes along with what we saw and, when I talked to other districts, what they saw,” Fox said. “The kids that were in kindergarten, first and second, but really kindergarten and first, during COVID, it affected them the most.”

The district has two federal grants coming down the pipe through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund to create more tutoring programs, improving summer school and purchasing newer technology. The blended learning grant is ending this year, Hudson said, but another grant the district has applied for should be replacing it soon.

In other reports, attendance was holding solid, and enrollment sat at an even 300 across the district. The prior week was reported as one of the best attended weeks since the start of the school year.

Superintendent Steve Johnson in his report mentioned the district has an opportunity to refinance a loan taken out for the elementary school’s construction. It would save $8,500 in interest payments for the rest of the term, he said, and a resolution addressing it will be presented for board approval at a future meeting.

In a usually routine approval of the September bills, board members were surprised at the district’s electricity payment, which had jumped from around $6,500 to over $9,000. Johnson said it was the first full month the new multipurpose facility had been on the district’s grid.