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District officials report wide local gains in reading and math in end-of-year snapshot
Summary
Administration presented local assessment snapshots showing notable improvements across early-grade reading and K-2 math at Peters and steady gains at Slatington, middle and high school; district emphasized these are local assessment results, not final state scores.
Northern Lehigh School District administrators on June 17 presented end-of-year local assessment snapshots that showed strong gains in several elementary grades and positive trends at middle and high school levels.
At Peters Elementary, administrators said the DIBELS early-literacy measure showed kindergarten core-support (green) rising from 53% at the beginning of the year to 84% at the end of the year, a 31-point increase. "In kindergarten, at the beginning of the year, 53% of students were core support, and at the end of the year, 84% were considered core support," the presenter said.
Peters' Imagine Math results also showed large proficiency gains: a kindergarten proficiency rate of 63.5% at year end (with 1.5% advanced), a first-grade proficiency rate of 91.6% at year end (1.5% advanced) and second-grade proficiency of 79% with 11% advanced. The presenter described the district's color-coded reporting and said the goal is to grow the green/orange slices while reducing yellow/red indicators.
Slatington Elementary showed steady IXL gains in both math and ELA across the year, with administration noting a small increase in unscored or "not pinpointed" students tied to special-education progress monitoring and snapshot-window attendance. The school plans scheduling changes next year to improve participation in benchmark windows.
At the middle school, presenters described targeted "bubble" groups'students on the cusp of proficiency'and said those targeted interventions yielded strong results in preliminary projections: "If it holds accurate, it will show that just under two-thirds of those bubble students actually scored proficient or advanced," a presenter said of preliminary PSSA projections. Teacher-led remediation and targeted enrichment sections were cited as a reason for growth.
High-school presenters showed cohort analyses for algebra and literature that translate growth into months of progress; the algebra example listed an average semester gain of about 6.4 months for the fall cohort and more substantial growth in the spring cohort, with a 100-point value equaling a year's worth of growth on that scale.
Administrators emphasized these are local assessment snapshots and not final state PSSA or Keystone results. The district said preliminary PSSA and WIDA data have been received and that Keystone data is expected at the end of the month; the district plans a fuller presentation when state releases (including PVAS and the Future Ready Index) are available.
Next steps: the district will present state-level results and updated PVAS/Future Ready Index measures once the state releases final data.
