Does the State Report Card tell the whole story for Garretson?

by Carrie Moritz, Gazette

            Last week, the South Dakota Department of Education Report Card was released. In that report, the Garretson School District fell short of state performances in testing, though other standardized testing has consistently found that Garretson School students are performing at or well above grade level. That leaves the question, why are the results of the report versus actual academic achievement at the Garretson School District so disparate, and what is the whole story?

            Students in grades 3-8 and 11 were tested on Math and English language arts, and students in grades 5, 8, and 11 were tested in science across the state this past spring. The state uses the Smarter Balanced Assessment test, which utilizes common core standards to parse out students' current knowledge levels.

            Statewide averages showed English language proficiency was 50%, and Math proficiency stayed steady at 43% for South Dakota students. Science measured at 43%. The Garretson School District scores overall were at 37% for English, 39% for Mathematics, and 37% for science.

            In 2020, Garretson students in those same grades measured at 51% proficiency in English language arts, 34% in Mathematics, and 34% in science.

            While the increase in math and science proficiency is promising, the drop in English language arts on the report card is concerning.

            When asked if the district had identified why that drop had occurred, Superintendent Guy Johnson noted it was likely several items, but the main driver was the curriculum, at least at the elementary level.

            "A few years ago we put in place what's called the 'Sondae System'. It has been very effective," he said, "but the issue that our teachers noticed after a couple of years in is that it moves very slowly."

            In other words, it teaches the components behind reading and writing exceedingly well, as evidenced by the school's spelling bee last spring where the competitors needed 165 words between twenty-four 3-5th grade students to declare a winner, but students aren't necessarily reaching the standards the state expects to see for their grade level prior to the spring test.

            "We were a little concerned that it wasn't moving fast enough to push us forward," said Johnson, pointing out that it was a few teachers, including Garretson Elementary Title I reading teacher Kim Macziewski, who brought the concerns forward.

            The school has recently ordered a new curriculum for kindergarten through second grades called "Into Reading," which the administration hopes will strike a better balance between the effectiveness of the Sondae System and the skill level sought by the state test.

            "Our hope is that by moving them along a little bit faster, that's going to have an improvement overall [on the report card]," Johnson said.

            Despite the low scores, at the high school level the report card showed that 67% of last year's juniors were on track for college readiness, with 86% of students earning at least one advanced endorsement, well above the state average of 72%. The school's average ACT score was 20, only slightly behind the state average.

            "It's interesting to me that we can be at that college level, our kids can be ready to enroll in college and not need remediation, but yet the test says 'you didn't do very well'," said Johnson.

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