Students in St. Vrain Valley Schools have achieved recent gains in reading and math, according to a new district report released Wednesday.
More than 5,600 students from kindergarten through eighth grade attended Project Launch summer learning and the Achievement Acceleration Academy after-school program over the past year to strengthen their reading and math skills, according to the school district’s Achievement Data Portfolio.
“Those students out-performed other like students that did not take advantage of those opportunities,” said Dr. Diane Lauer, assistant superintendent of priority programs and academic support.
Lauer presented the data portfolio alongside Dr. Ann Reed, executive director of assessment, at a school district study session Wednesday.
Under the Colorado Measures of Academic Success, or CMAS assessments, third-graders reached a milestone in the number of math scores that met and exceeded expectations.
“We had a 7% gain in math from 2018 to last year,” Lauer told the Board of Education.
Third-graders earned a 4% gain in English Language Arts assessments.
Under the iReady assessments, which are conducted three times a year to help teachers determine students’ needs, the district saw “phenomenal growth,” Lauer said.
“Our expected growth per students in the fall and winter — that half a year segment — is 50%,” she explained. “In our reading iReady, on average, our students from grades one to eight grew 80% — so that’s 30% above that expected growth. And in math, it was 58%.”
A record number of eighth-grade Hispanic students are taking advanced math this year — 23%, at a pass rate of 94%, the report shows.
The portfolio also highlighted the importance of extracurricular activities among older students. Around 78% of middle and high school students are involved in after school activities — an increase of 23% since 2016, Reed said.
“When students are engaged in co-curricular or extracurricular activities outside the regular school day, their GPAs are higher, they’re more involved with the community, and we see that they flourish,” Reed said.
