ACS student achievement lags after Helene-shortened semester

MIDYEAR SCORES: Shannon Baggett, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction at Asheville City Schools, told the Asheville City Board of Education that students' midyear test scores could have been worse considering students lost 22 days of learning due to Tropical Storm Helene. Photo by Greg Parlier

Midyear data shows students in Asheville City Schools (ACS) are behind last year’s cohort. A likely contributing factor is the 22 days of canceled classes due to Tropical Storm Helene.

District administrators told the Asheville City Board of Education at its Feb. 10 meeting that about 60% of this year’s students in kindergarten through fifth grade are at or above reading benchmarks compared with about 65% last year.

In math, students in kindergarten, first and second grades also lag their peers in 2023-24. Those proficient in number-sense tests were 77% of the total last year but 71% this year.

Administrators viewed the results positively considering the significant loss of teaching days.

“This is a really big deal to me because we lost 22 (days) in that first semester, and we’re only off by about 5 percentage points,” said Molly Peeples, early literacy specialist for ACS. “This tells me that our teachers are working incredibly hard to make up these gaps.”

The midyear data also showed continuing gaps in test scores between Black and non-Hispanic white students.

For example, just two of the district’s 39 Black sixth graders scored at or above proficiency on reading tests compared with 106 of the district’s 129 white sixth graders. Similar gaps were seen in math and reading across all middle school grades.

In high school, at least 60% of non-Hispanic white students scored proficient in math and English compared with just 13% of their Black counterparts across the board.

That is well short of the district’s goal of ensuring 50% of its Black students are proficient in all areas in 2024-25.

Board Chair Sarah Thornburg reiterated that closing the achievement gap remains a top priority for the board.

“I continue to be concerned that we’re not seeing significant growth. I know you all are working on that, and we trust you. I just wanted to say out loud, we continue to find that a very important goal,” she said.

This story was supported by the Fund for Investigative Reporting and Editing.

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