SCHENECTADY — The Schenectady City School District is taking steps to address the student body’s performance on standardized state math testing, according to Superintendent Anibal Soler Jr.
No eighth-grade Schenectady students passed the state math test this spring, with 12 % of students in grades 3-8 passing the exams this year, well below the 41 % who passed the tests statewide.
In an interview with Daily Gazette on Dec. 19, Soler said the district is undertaking a series of steps to remedy the low state test scores, pointing to the community schools initiative that began at five district elementary schools in June that offer expanded after school hours and programming for pupils.
Soler said the district added Michael Kovall as an assistant director dedicated to mathematics in an effort to boost math performance in the district.
“We never had anybody who was in charge of math across the buildings,” Soler said. “So (Kovall)’s job is to focus on curriculum and make sure it’s aligned K-12 and making sure there’s common assessments that we’re doing in the district to try to assess kids and not wait for this math assessment to come in March. We’re also doing diagnostic testing for our kids.”
The superintendent said the district is conducting professional development with its teaching staff in order to bring the district up to standard. Soler said that the district is also holding science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEAM) camps while the district is on summer break so that pupils can stay engaged with science and math.
He also noted that the district is hoping to add a math lab class at the high school level.
Soler explained that Schenectady eighth-graders who take accelerated algebra did not take the state assessment math exam, with 118 eighth-grade students instead taking the Algebra 1 Regents Exam.
“The results weren’t surprising to us in the system, because we knew that the kids taking it were probably not our most advanced kids, our best-performing kids,” Soler said. “They were the kids who had come off of 18 months of interrupted learning and then were placed in schools.”
A total of 744 Schenectady students opted out of the state math assessments this spring, with 303 students (40.3 %) in eighth-grade declining to take the test.
In the English Language Arts (ELA) state assessments, 18 % of Schenectady eighth-graders passed the exam in 2022, with 29 % of district sixth-graders passing the ELA test, with a total of 21 % of district students passing the exam. Statewide, 47 % of students in grades 3-8 passed the ELA test.
The district recorded a 78 % high school graduation rate for the 2021-2022 school year.
“About 80 percent of kids graduate from Schenectady and that’s a story that doesn’t get told enough,” Soler said. “So we can have kids not proficient on a state assessment, but yet 80 percent of them get out on time in four years. That’s important given the fact that pretty much every kid eats for free given our poverty rates.”
Board of Education President Bernice Rivera said she hopes to see measurable progress in the district’s math performance.
“We’d like to see continued professional development for our teachers and staff to help bring those numbers up,” she said on Friday. “Some of the programs we have to intervene and provide intervention services to our students I’d like to see continued. I think the whole board would like to see those continued and also coupled with support for students with what has happened nationwide with COVID and some of the mental health supports that they need.”
The district is also offering expanded learning time tutoring at every school in the district, but Soler noted the district has faced challenges in getting the workforce to agree to work extra hours for extra pay at 17 school buildings.
“Our teachers are already giving 100 % for seven hours during the day and then we say, ‘Hey, do you want to stay another two hours?’” Soler asked.
Soler said the district is exploring partnerships with organizations including the Boys & Girls Clubs of Schenectady to supplement the district’s after school offerings.
Only four percent of black students in the district passed the math exam in grades 3-8.
The superintendent said he is hoping for more community involvement in order to combat the state test scores.
“When those results came in, no one came banging at my door to say, ‘How can I help?’” Soler said. “I got nobody that reached out to me when articles are written about the number of kids who are black and brown that didn’t pass the test. If we’re serious about this, I’d have everybody knocking and saying, ‘Hey, what can we do? Can we come in and read to kids? What do you need for funding? What do you need for resources?’ We should have had people pissed and had people upset. But there was nobody.”