State testing results are out and School District 38 is looking at bright spots and room for improvement to strategize future actions.

The 2024 results of the Colorado Measures of Academic Success (CMAS) and Colorado College Readiness Exams (PSAT/SAT) taken by students in the Lewis-Palmer School District were analyzed and presented to the Board of Education Sept. 3 during a work session at the district learning center in Monument.

Students in grades 3-8 were assessed with the CMAS in Language Arts and Mathematics, while grades five, eight and 11 were also tested in Science. At the secondary level, ninth and 10th grade students were assessed with the PSAT while juniors had the SAT.

Assistant Superintendent Amber Whetstine and Director of Assessment Dr. Michael Brom presented the information and fielded questions from the board. Although Whetstine said there are identified “opportunities for improvement,” the analysis of results have much to celebrate.

“We continue to be one of the top performing school districts in the State of Colorado, so we have a lot to be proud of,” she said.

Brom noted the PSAT/SAT testing format this year was a new multi-stage adaptive test of which results showed a decline in PSAT/SAT scores across Colorado. A brief from the Colorado Department of Education over the summer, regarding the same, warned districts should be very cautious about how it interprets that data, he said.

“Last year, the tests were fixed forms. They were paper, and all students took the same exact test whereas this last year was adaptive,” Brom said. “Once those results came in, the college board in Colorado recognized there was a need to revisit the scores over the last two years.”

At the high school level, students scored in the 85th percentile in both English and Mathematics this year. Last year, scores in English were in the 89th percentile while last year were also in the 85th. The 2022 scores in Math were in the 84th percentile and 79th last year.

Brom said for the most part students in Colorado exceed test scores from a National average. Also to be considered, all students in Colorado at the high school level are tested with the PSAT/SAT whereas many other states only test students who elect to participate and are college bound, he said.

In Language Arts, middle school students tested in the 83rd percentile, like last year. However, in Math, seventh and eighth graders tested in the 81st percentile, down from the 90th last year. Elementary students scored in the 88th percentile in English, a slight increase from the past two years, and the 84th percentile in Math, a minor decrease from 85th the past two years.

As for growth percentiles, assessing for example a third grader’s improvement from testing in 2023 to his or her fourth grade scores in 2024, D-38 sets a goal across the board to see at least growth in the 50th percentiles. The CMAS Language Arts growth showed all elementary schools in the district had growth in the 50th percentile or better. The highest growth was seen from Bear Creek Elementary School in the 65th percentile.

However, Lewis Palmer Middle School showed the least amount of growth, scoring at the 38th percentile in English.

In Math, three of the schools in the district met or grew beyond the 50th percentile, the most coming from Ray Kilmer Elementary School in the 70th percentile. The other schools did not meet the district’s goal with LPMS being at the 40th percentile and BCES at 40.5.

The Colorado growth model is different from achievement where students are compared across the state to all students to all other students.

“When we get our growth percentiles, these scores are students growing compared to like-scoring peers,” Whetstine said. “When we’re seeing these growth scores well above the 50th percentile, that’s really something to celebrate and where we also see some opportunities for improvement which we are honing in there as well.”

Brom said there are a variety of contributing factors to LPMS missing the district growth percentile goal including turnover and students transitioning between sixth and seventh grades.

“The middle school is targeting this year what are the skill deficits that the incoming seventh graders have to help accelerate their growth at the middle school level,” he said. “The nice thing about the CMAS data is that it gives us fixed standards and so our teachers are really zeroing in on that this year. I think that we’ll see an improvement in the growth going forward.”

Brom also said that participation in testing at the middle school levels is at about 60 percent. However, despite it being below the state’s recommended 96 percent participation, it is still sufficient enough to allow the district to have valid data given the size of the seventh and eighth grade populations.

Whetstine said although the Math growth has decreased the achievement scores remain very high.

Brom and Whetstine later went over the College and Career Readiness (CCR) results for the PSAT among ninth graders, tenth graders by each D-38 school at those levels and the same for the SAT results of 11th graders.

Ninth graders from Palmer Ridge and Lewis-Palmer high schools as well as Monument Academy Secondary school all scored above the state’s 65 percent benchmark for English. Palmer Ridge and Lewis-Palmer students marked at 86 percent. In Math, freshmen from each school also scored higher than the state’s 39-percent benchmark. Palmer Ridge was at 69 percent while Lewis-Palmer 63 percent.

“The benchmark for Math college and career readiness is higher than it is for English, so we have to take that data with a little grain of salt,” Whetstine said.

Tenth graders at all schools in English scored well above the state’s 66-percent benchmark with Monument Academy scoring the highest at 96 percent. In Math, sophomores from all schools also tested past the state’s 34-percent average, again the highest results coming from Monument Academy at 56 percent.

Monument Academy also tested in the highest percentages for English and Math on the SAT among juniors. While all secondary schools tested higher than the state’s benchmark for English (57 percent) and Math (31 percent), Monument Academy juniors tested 96 percent in English and 60 percent in Math. Lewis-Palmer tested 84th in English and 57th in Math.

Whetstine said the district is already diving into root-cause analysis for the decrease in growth in Mathematics and in the beginning stages of developing action plans, which would become the district’s unified improvement plans. These improvement plans will be presented to the board when developed, she said.

“What we are taking a look at is years of experience of our teachers, as we’ve talked a lot about. We’re hiring a lot of newer teachers to the field,” Whetstine said.

In addition, a few years prior, the district committed to a significant emphasis on literacy including a large grant supporting professional development in literacy instruction as well as literary resources, Whetstine noted.

“We are anticipating a need to really provide additional professional development and coaching around Math instruction,” she said. “So those are some of the things we are digging into looking at our data presently.”