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Date: 10/11/2023
SPRINGFIELD — The School Committee learned at its Oct. 5 meeting while there is room for improvement, MCAS scores show Springfield students are recovering from the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
The statistics also showed the district has made significant improvements in its graduation rate from 2012 to 2022.
Elise Bernice, the manager of strategic date for the school department, conducted an in-depth look at not only the MCAS test scores but also presented a statistical status of the district.
Bernice noted the Springfield district is the third largest district in New England with 23,721 students for school year 2023. Its total budget is $792.3 million and has 71 schools with one alternative schools/programs and one virtual school.
The teacher-to-student ratio is 10.9 students per teacher and the diversity of the city is reflected in the schools.
The students are primarily Hispanic at 69%, followed by Black students at 18%, white students at 8%. Asian students at 2% and other at 3%.
The staff is also diverse with white staffers at 62%, Hispanic at 19 percent, Black at 18% , Asian at 1% and other at 1%. This means that 38 percent of the staff come from diverse backgrounds with the statewide figure at 14%.
Eighty-six percent of the student body is classified as low income compared to the state average of 42.3%. High needs students are 89.6% while the state is at 51.1%, while students whose first language is not English make up 28.4% with the state number at 25%. Students with disabilities make up 25.2 % of the students in Springfield with the state number at 19.4%.
The district has three schools which were recognized by state officials for strong growth to Next Generation Accountability targets: Brookings, Glickman and Milton Bradley. Statewide there were only 63 other schools with such accomplishment.
Looking at average scaled English language arts MCAS scores for grade 3-8, Bernice explained there was a decrease in scores from 2019-2021. That decline continued statewide into 2022, but decline has now stopped in 2023.
For grade 10 ELA MCAS scores, there was also a decrease state-wide as well as a slight decline one of 1 point for the schools outside of the Empowerment Zone while in the Empowerment Zone there was a slight increase.
Springfield has a scaled score of 482 in 2023, while the state-wide score was 494.
Bernice said there was a similar drop in scaled scores for math in 2021 with increases in both the grades 3-8 as well as grade 10.
The district as a whole has a score of 480 in math for grades 3-8 in 2023 compared to the state of 494. For grade 10, the math score was 485 compared to the state at 500.
The same trend was for the science MCAS results for grades 5 and 8, with them making a slight recovery. The district’s averaged scale score for 2023 is 481 with the state at 494.
In terms of graduation rates for a four-year cohort, the state’s graduation rate in 2021 was 84.7% and by 2022 rose to 90.1%. In Springfield, in 2012 the graduation rate was 56.6% and in 2022 was 86.1%.
“Considerable increases there,” Bernice said. The dropout rate has also declined, she added.
Attendance has also recovered with 90.5% after a sharp drop in 2021 and 2022.
Arrests in the schools have also declined. In 2012 there were 309 arrests while in 2023 there were 14.