Students learn about science in a Swain West Elementary School.
Jessica Webb
editor@thesmokymountaintimes.com
The N.C. Department of Public Instruction recently released the 2022-2023 School Performance Grades based on School’s Achievement Scores (80%) and school academic growth (20%), with each school receiving a “C.”
The scores are a result of end-of-grade and end-of-course test results and factor in academic growth outcomes at schools, reaching goals in reducing performance gaps and cohort graduation rates.
This year’s scores are a positive change for Swain County Schools, although like the rest of the state, education is still recovering from the disruptions of the Covid pandemic.
Swain County Schools Superintendent Mark Sale said this time last year, the district was reeling from its first two low-performing school ratings.
“After some significant effort at both East Elementary and the Middle School to address that concern, we now have no ‘low performing’ schools. We’re back to where we were even before Covid,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we’ve stopped working.”
East and West elementary schools met growth and Swain Middle School exceeded growth. Swain County High School did not meet growth. Sale attributes the high school’s plateau to the goal posts moving higher.
“When we run for time towards a goal the faster, we get, the more difficult it is to make improvements, and our high school has made such improvement in the past few years it’s getting more difficult to meet the expectation placed on it by the state, and that will be true at all schools,” he said.
There are several points of celebration in the state test results for Swain High, Sale noted, starting with exceeding the state’s 4-year cohort rate 87.7 to 86.4. Also, Swain’s WorkKeys score, based on the percentage of seniors who earn Silver Certificates or better through the Career and Technical Education program, Swain outpaced the state by 10 points.
“We’re incredibly proud of our English II scores that outpace the state,” Sale said.
The school district also had growth in reading for third, sixth and seventh grade, all of which exceeded the state. Seventh-grade math scores were particularly good, outpacing the state by 10 points.
On the other hand, there are areas of concern.
“We’re concerned about the reading score we saw in fifth-grade last year,” Sale said. “We’re addressing that with the opportunity for training and how we’re staffing that. We’re concerned about the math scores from third and eighth grade, but we’re working to address those.”
Work on improving academic achievement and growth will continue, according to Sale, with efforts going toward things like greater instructional tools and differentiation.
“Swain County Schools have a lot to be proud of,” Sale said. “We’ve worked hard, but we also recognize we have work to do.”
He points to the district’s recently adopted 5-year Strategic Plan that he hopes will move the district toward a goal of earning ‘B’ grades for its schools.
Charter School
Mountain Discovery Charter School also earned a ‘C’ for the 2022-2023 school year but exceeded growth.
“We are pleased that our students exceeded growth last year and have measures in place to continue that upward trajectory. Our staff and students are working hard to move beyond the learning loss of the Covid years,” said the co-directors in a written statement.
Covid losses
In releasing the test results, N.C. DPI reported students across the state continued to recover from educational losses from during the Covid pandemic, stating that while school closures and remote learning resulted in unprecedented declines in end-of-grade and end-of-course test scores for the 2020-2021 school year, results from the 2022-2023 year show strong gains, particularly in math, with losses in some grades cut by more than two thirds. Reading scores also improved in all grades across the state, with losses from the 2020-2021 year cut in half or more in some grades.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt said last year’s accountability results show schools remain on track to recover from the significant setbacks education faced during the pandemic.
“It’s hard to overstate the impact of the pandemic, but teachers across North Carolina are working harder than ever to help students recover, and more importantly, advance in their learning,” Truitt said in a press release. “We owe them our gratitude for meeting this challenge to improve outcomes for students.”
Eric Davis, chairman of the state Board of Education, agrees the accountability results reflect the hard work of educators and students.
“There is clear evidence of the efforts of educators, students and parents to close the gaps in academic learning created during the pandemic,” he said. “We should recognize those efforts and support those efforts with the resources our students need to succeed.”
Some ways Swain County Schools invested in addressing the learning loss were by increasing personalized reading instruction and having reading assistants in the elementary schools. Also, both at the elementary schools and the middle school, the principals were able to focus more on instructional capacity for their staff, according to Superintendent Sale.
Going into next year, the district will have to evaluate some of those added resources because funding for those programs was tied to pandemic relief funds.
Technology
The pandemic also highlighted a need in this rural county for greater connectivity and access to high-speed internet. While Sale agrees there’s still a concern for this the pressing need has abated since students have returned to campus for instruction.
At the schools, for grades 3rd-12th, there is a 1:1 technology ratio.
“We still see there is a need for connectivity in some areas (of the county),” Sale said. “We still have the capability for students to take home little hot spots.”
As the district reviews the need to upgrade textbooks, it is finding that most textbooks and supplementary materials are now digital, potentially increasing the need for connectivity for students across the county.