By Megan Kelley
Review Writer
LAKE ORION — The Lake Orion Community Schools Board of Education met on June 22 and heard a presentation from district data specialist Missy Butki reviewing the end-of-the-year student achievement data.
“We thought this year was going to be kind of normal when we started and then (there was) still a little bit of the pandemic holding on. We still had some quarantines happening. But then we had the tragedy in Oxford and so some of our data isn’t going to look as good as we wanted it to,” Butki said.
Butki, who provides student data regularly throughout the year, explained Lake Orion’s “comprehensive and balanced” assessment system.
“We assess our kids every single day. So, it’s comprehensive because we have a multitude of different assessments that we give kids, whether they’re formal or informal,” said Butki. “It’s balanced because we don’t give too much of one and not enough of another. And it’s a system because they all work together to tell parents, students, administration, the board, everyone involved, (if) our kids meeting those standards.”
The system components include daily assessments that show evidence of learning. From there, other assessments include quizzes, tests and projects then grades and report cards.
Also included are benchmark testing, which occurs about two to three times a year, as well as state assessments like MSTEP, PSAT and SAT.
Benchmark testing is the data Butki typically reports on.
“These are the best indicators on whether we are achieving our standards and benchmarks at each grade level,” Butki said.
The district has 4,500 kids in kindergarten through eighth-grade who take benchmark assessments in reading and math, which are provided through state-approved vendor, FastBridge Learning.
The data provided is based on the number of students who are considered “low risk” for not meeting benchmarks.
Reading
In reading, across all of K-8, data shows students have surpassed where the district was pre-COVID with 75.5 percent of students assessed as low-risk of not meeting reading benchmarks.
This means that 75.5 percent of students are meeting benchmarks and have a low risk of not doing well.
In the winter of the 2019-20 school year, 74 percent of K-8 students were considered low-risk of not meeting reading benchmarks. After the onset of COVID, when students returned in the winter of 2020-21, only 60 percent of K-8 students were still considered “low risk.”
The data does vary by grade level, with kindergarten being a good example.
“Kindergarten, in fall of 2020-21, when we started remote (learning), yikes. (It was) very difficult to learn letter sounds and concepts of print when you’re in front of a screen and that’s the first time they’ve seen school. So, that’s why we see that drop,” said Butki.
When kindergartners returned as first graders in the 2020-21 school year, there was a slight regression that is typically seen when students return to school from summer vacation – the “summer slide” as Butki calls it.
However, when new data became available, first grade was flat-lining, showing the district that a change needed to be made in first grade. Data specialists looked at individual components, separating it by building and teacher.
Administrators and literacy coaches then took the data and used it to make concrete steps to improve reading at the first-grade level causing their percentage of low-risk students to climb 10 percent to just above 70 percent.
In upper elementary, LOCS students are typically above the district average with the exception of sixth grade, which took a slight dive, landing at just above 65 percent considered low risk in the fall of 2021-22, bouncing back to 80 percent in spring 2022.
Math
“Math is a little bit more difficult to climb. Math is so super sequential to master the skills prior to the one you’re learning that you may not have gotten when all of this took on. So, it’s going to take us a little bit longer to climb the math mountain than the reading mountain,” Butki said.
District data shows quite a sporadic chart among grades 2-8. Those students as a whole landed at just above 75 percent being low-risk pre-COVID in the winter of 2019-20.
After the onset of COVID, much like reading, math also took a dive. However, for the spring of 2021-22, 75 percent of those students were considered low-risk of not meeting math benchmarks.
Like in reading, middle school students are performing above the district average though most still have not hit the percentage of low-risk students that they were hitting pre-COVID.
Social Emotional Learning
This year, the district also has data regarding social emotional learning.
Over the 2021-22 school year, LOCS has implemented the Collaborative for Academic Social Emotional Learning (CASEL) framework to “foster knowledge, skills and attitudes across five areas of social and emotional competence” and “establish equitable learning environments and coordinate practices across four key settings that support student’s social, emotional and academic development.” Presentations were given throughout the year by level (elementary, middle and high school).
The CASEL framework focuses on five skills/competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making.
“Buildings made specific plans based on the data they received in the fall after taking a survey,” Butki said.
The survey is done using the Social Academic Emotional Behaviors Risk Screener (SAEBRS), which is also provided by FastBridge Learning.
In grades one through five, about 2,500 district students take a teacher screener.
Teachers across those grade levels rated their students based on the five Social Emotional Learning (SEL) components.
In the fall, those teachers had about 12 percent meeting SEL benchmarks. In the winter, that percentage increased by one, with 13 percent not meeting SEL benchmarks.
“Keep in mind, tragedies happened,” Butki said. “Also, each teacher is different when they rate their students. Some teachers rate them more difficult, some rate them lighter. It’s not an exact science but it does give us information we can go on.”
However, in the total composite from fall to winter, several grades actually saw an increase in their total and subscores for SEL.
Grades four through eight participate in the mySAEBRS screener, which has them answer the same kind of questions, just on their own.
In the fall, 16 percent of students rated themselves as below benchmarks for SEL. The winter took a dip with 19 percent rating themselves below SEL benchmarks. The spring saw an improvement, with 15 percent of students rating themselves below SEL benchmarks.
Attendance
According to district data, in 2018-19 about 93 percent of students were missing 10 percent of school days or less (8-14 days).
During the 2021-22 school year, however, that percentage dropped with roughly 74 percent of students only missing 10 percent of school days.
Additionally, in 2018-19, roughly four percent of students were missing 15-22 days of school. This year, that percentage saw a big increase with almost 18 percent of district students missing that many days.
“There are a lot of reasons for that too, whether they’re good or bad,” Butki said. “Parents are working from home now. It’s a little easier to have your kid stay home. Teachers are making it a little bit easier because we now have (Microsoft) Teams and we have Seesaw and we can post things so it’s a little bit easier for kids to not come. Kids are now saying they have anxiety. All of these reasons are valid and true, but we have to work with them.”
According to Butki, in the district’s school improvement process, the district has listed “to increase our student attendance rates for students who miss less than 15 days of school by 20 percent” as one of their four-year goals.
“We plan to increase five percent every year, for students that miss less than 15 days of school,” Butki said.