The latest ILEARN test results show most elementary and middle school students in Johnson County still haven’t made up the ground they lost during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Indiana Department of Education first administered the test, which measures proficiency in both English Language Arts and math for third through eighth graders, in 2019. The test was canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic, but continued the following year.
All six Johnson County public school districts had a lower proficiency percentage in ELA, math and both sections combined than they did in the 2019 school year, following a statewide trend. Three of the four Johnson County private schools that have data tracking back to the 2019 school year also scored lower in proficiency in at least one section than in 2019, the exception being Saints Francis & Clare, which has one of the highest proficiency rates in the state across all categories.
All Johnson County school districts aside from Edinburgh fared better than the state average in ELA, math and both. The state averages are 40.7% for ELA, 40.9% for math and 30.6% for both.
Saints Francis & Clare had an 85% proficiency rating in math, while 84% of students reached proficiency in ELA and 79% of students were proficient in both, according to IDOE data. While many students in other schools throughout the county struggled to recover from the pandemic, some students at Saints Francis & Clare were able to attain extra tutoring to help bridge any learning gaps, said Betty Popp, principal.
“Several of our teachers will tutor privately, we’ve had students able to tutor through some programs like Orton Gillingham for reading in kindergarten through second grade so in third grade they have good foundational skills,” Popp said. “We’ve had afterschool programs and did some tutoring during the summer with Title 1 services.”
The school’s proficiency rate in ELA and math combined is the sixth highest in the state. School administrators and teachers are able to look at the results each year to determine which students need help in which areas and target instruction accordingly, Popp said.
“Teachers can see which children need the most work and which children need to continue to be challenged,” she said. “We devoted a half hour a day to children working on individual goals and paths in language arts and math. We used the program i-Ready and it helped them. Teachers can look at the data from that program and figure out what extra help students need, no matter what level they are.”
Center Grove Schools had the highest proficiency rate among Johnson County public school districts. There, 58% of students were proficient in ELA, 60% were proficient in math and 49% were proficient in both, but students were 5% to 7% less proficient than they were in 2019 in the three categories, according to IDOE data.
While the school district as a whole isn’t where it was four years ago, individual schools and grades have gotten back to — and in some cases exceeded — those levels, something none of the schools achieved last year. In order to get all schools over the hump, teachers and building administrators will need to mirror successful strategies from the best-performing schools, said Nora Hoover, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning.
“It’s a lot of hard work to make back the learning loss and (it takes) the care of our great teachers and the leaders in buildings giving teachers what they need to have successful,” Hoover said. “In third-grade language arts, three of the six (elementary) schools are back above where they were before the pandemic, which is great. In math, two of our six schools are better than before the pandemic.”
Hoover attributed some of the recent improvement to expanded summer school offerings and the Ready, Set, Kindergarten program for incoming kindergartners, both funded through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund, or ESSER.
“Before we were only doing an IREAD-3 (third grade) summer school program. Now we’re running a (kindergarten through fourth grade) program so kids still in elementary school next year can fill some of those gaps not covered during the school year,” Hoover said. “We use kindergarten screener data to find kids who would benefit from a jumpstart for a two-week, half-day program. They come in, and a classroom teacher is in the building, building skills before school even starts.”
Edinburgh Schools had the lowest proficiency rates in the county, with 28% of students proficient in ELA, 26% proficient in math and 19% proficient in both. The figures represent a steep dropoff from where the school district was before the pandemic. In 2019, 44% of students were proficient in ELA, and 41% were proficient in math, according to IDOE data.
Edinburgh schools administrators partnered with Sylvan Learning Centers last year in an attempt to turn the tide, and teachers are tutoring students after school, Superintendent Ron Ross said in an email.
“Our goal is to take students where they are and get them to grow in their learning. Unfortunately, showing growth doesn’t always get a student to proficient,” Ross said. “We plan to double those efforts going into the next school year. We also plan to increase the amount of interventions during the school day. We want to see our students grow and be proficient. We are going to increase our efforts to make this happen.”
Greenwood Schools results fall in the middle of the pack, with 49% of students proficient in ELA, 47% proficient in math and 36% proficient in both. Along with finding ways to work with students to help them reach proficiency, it’s equally important to make sure teachers are prepared as they enter the new school year, Superintendent Terry Terhune said.
“We’re reenergizing our Professional Learning Communities meetings. We worked with administrators and teachers this summer and had retreats with over 50 teachers and building leaders as we look at where there are gaps and plans to improve our scores and make learning better for our kids,” he said. “We did a lot of math professional development this summer and we had our best turnout in a number of years.”
