SAUGUS ― Data from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) — shared with the School Committee last week — has placed the school district in the lowest 10 percent of state schools when it comes to Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) scores.
The town’s public school district learned from the newly-released data from 2021 that their students are in the bottom 10 percentile of state high schools, which corroborated with high schoolers’ scores from the 2019 test. MCAS tests were not conducted in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Superintendent of Schools Erin McMahon said she believes Saugus can go from the bottom 10 percent to the top 10 percent by June 2027.
At the meeting, the committee and McMahon discussed learning plans for the school district to implement in the coming years.
These plans, and similar ones made by school committees across the state, come into even more stark relief when the effects of learning loss from the COVID-19 pandemic are taken into account. The data from 2019 shows previous sophomores’ math and English/language arts scores before COVID, and to the 2021 scores reflect the changes students underwent as they tried to adapt to new learning environments.
The fact that 2021’s scores were largely unchanged from those of 2019 is a win in the era of COVID-19, according to McMahon.
“In a year of COVID, that is actually a gain,” she said. “I am thankful for the teachers in our high school, who worked hard to make sure that was the case.
“The good news is we have support already in place; the bad news is we are starting further back than we thought we would,” McMahon added.
As for the 2021 data for third through eighth grade, there was a massive decline in mathematics scores since 2019, which affected one out of five students, according to the results.
McMahon said the district will be focusing on reteaching math in areas where students struggled the most.
“We saw the decline and we have plans to fix that,” said McMahon.
