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Date: 10/19/2022
SPRINGFIELD – Superintendent Daniel Warwick continued an October tradition with the School Committee by briefing them on the status of the city’s schools, and his message was the district is still trying to catch up after the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Yet, there was good news in the report. “The best story is the four-year graduation rate by subgroup,” Warwick said. “We exceed the state in every demographic group significantly.”
Overall, the district went from 79 percent in the 2019-2020 period to 83 percent in 2020 to 2021 in the four-year graduation rates. The High School of Commerce showed great strides in going from 61.8 percent in 2019-2020 to 86.8 percent in 2020-2021. Sci-Tech went from 85.4 to 91.5 in those years.
The improvement is “absolutely spectacular” in the dropout rates, Warwick said. In 2020 there were 168 dropouts in the school system outside of the empowerment zones and that decreased to 112 in 2021.
Warwick told the committee at its Oct. 13 meeting that Springfield is once again the commonwealth’s second largest school district with 23,799 students with a teaching ratio of 10.6 students for every teacher.
The city has 70 schools, including nine alternative schools., four special schools and one virtual school. The make-up of the student body is 9 percent white, 18 percent black, 68 percent Hispanic, 2 percent Asian and 3 per cent other.
In terms of the makeup of the school community, 87.4 percent of the students are low income (compared to the state at 43.8 percent); high need students make up 90.6 of the students (58.6 percent for the state); students whose first language is not English is 29.8 percent (the state is 23.9 percent); and students with disabilities make 24.7 percent with the state’s level at 18.9 percent.
Warwick noted that while the district had been showing improvement with attendance, there have been problems with it recently.
“Last year was a very tough year for attendance,” he said.
Chronic absenteeism also proved to be an issue. “There was a huge problem during the [coronavirus] pandemic,” he added.
There continue to be declines in both the arrest rates and the number of incidents involving bullying, Warwick said.
“[The current amount] is a small fraction of bullying than what we used to have,” he said.
According to the report, “Statewide, 2022 MCAS results showed mixed results: a sign of recovery in Math and Science following COVID[-19] and a decline in English Language Arts (ELA) scores, particularly in the early grades (grades 3-5).”
The report also noted, “The 2022 test was the first time in three years Grade 10 students participated in MCAS. [Department of Elementary and Secondary Education] announced that 2022 will be used as a new baseline for state targets and accountability moving forward.”
Warwick explained that in some MCAS classifications, such as science, the test for fifth and eighth graders, Springfield showed improvement from 2021 to 2022 and was higher that the state average and higher than other urban districts.