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Chief academic officer cites online testing, low participation after junior high falls into bottom 15%
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Summary
At a board meeting, the district’s chief academic officer reported Midland County Junior High was in the bottom 15% for PSSA achievement, explained the Opportunity Scholarship letter that followed, and said mandatory online testing and sub‑95% participation may have driven the dip; administrators promised more disaggregated data and intervention plans.
Chief Academic Officer Mr. Yarmouth told the Mifflin County School Board that Midland County Junior High fell into the bottom 15% of schools on the state PSSA measure, triggering a required letter to families about eligibility for the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit program.
The letter, Mr. Yarmouth said, alerts families that students in schools designated in the bottom 15% of achievement on combined math and reading may be eligible to apply for scholarships to attend other public or non‑public schools. "The Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit program enables eligible students residing within the boundaries of low‑achieving schools to apply for a scholarship to attend another public or nonpublic school," he said.
Why the junior high dropped, he told the board, is not a single factor. He and board members discussed staffing turnover, curriculum change and cohort differences. He emphasized one statewide change that may have had an outsized effect: Pennsylvania’s move to mandatory online administration of PSSAs and Keystones. "It is mandatory in the state of Pennsylvania that all PSSAs and Keystones are taken online," he said, adding that online testing changes the tools students use and can penalize districts still transitioning to digital testing formats.
Board members pressed for more detail. Several asked administration to run the numbers excluding nonparticipating students and to provide time‑series data for multiple cohorts and subgroup breakdowns (students with IEPs, economically disadvantaged, race/ethnicity). The district agreed to produce raw participation and subgroup counts so the board can assess how much opt‑outs or automatic assigned zeros may have affected building accountability scores.
Mr. Yarmouth also summarized next steps: a continued K–12 focus on math (the district piloted i‑Ready Math for K–5), requests in the budget process for additional middle‑school math staffing and interventions, and a required review under Act 47 of 2025 to adopt state‑approved, evidence‑based core reading materials. He said the district will also expand MTSS (multi‑tiered system of supports) guidance and pilot core reading programs to meet the state’s requirements.
The administration did not present a formal causal determination at the meeting; questions about how much of the decline is due to online testing, participation rates, subgroup composition or other factors remained open. The board requested disaggregated participation counts and the administration’s alternate calculations (with and without nonparticipants) before the next budget and staffing decisions.
The district also highlighted some quantitative context in the presentation: emergency‑certificate staffing has increased in recent years (administration cited about 35 emergency certified staff this year plus two at the academy), AP pass rates have improved in some subjects (administration cited strong calculus and English AP results) and Keystone outcomes are mixed across buildings, which complicates one‑line characterizations of district performance.
Administration said the district will return with more precise data and recommended staffing proposals as part of the upcoming budget process; no policy change or vote on interventions occurred at the meeting.
