SWAMPSCOTT — Despite being pushed into virtual learning during a pandemic, students in Swampscott still scored above the curve in the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS).
Jean Bacon, director of teaching and learning for Swampscott Public Schools, said in a presentation about the MCAS at the Wednesday School Committee meeting that even though scores did dip, overall, Swampscott students scored well above the state average.
“We continue, as we have historically, to generally run about 10 points above statewide performance,” said Bacon.
The MCAS was not administered during 2020 due to remote learning and the pandemic. The first tests that were given post-pandemic in Swampscott were in April, Bacon said.
In her presentation, Bacon said that, in terms of the percentage of students in Massachusetts meeting or exceeding expectations, the state’s average in English Language Arts (ELA) dropped 6 percent for grades three through eight; mathematics dropped 15 percent for grades three through eight and 6 percent for grade 10.
English Language Arts for grade 10 was the only section where there was an increase in meeting or exceeding expectations statewide, with that raising 3 percent from the previous tests.
While Swampscott mirrored the state in the fact that scores dipped slightly, the percentage change in the town’s schools was less drastic than at the state level.
“There’s not a huge deficit, considering how we were forced to deliver educational programming last year,” Bacon said.
Elementary students’ scores dropped the most in ELA, by 13 percent, and dropped 6 percent in math. Middle-school results dropped 1 percent in ELA and 18 percent in math. Swampscott High School students went up by 7 percent, but their math scores dropped by 6 percent.
Bacon said that her main areas of concern are with elementary students’ ELA scores, as well as the drop in math scores at the middle-school level.
“Those are two areas where we’re going to have to continue to investigate and figure out how to address this,” Bacon said. “We were starting even before we knew what the data said.”
Despite that, she said that she was pleased to see that there weren’t too many significant changes in students’ scores.
“Overall, our educators and our families did a remarkable job supporting students’ learning during the pandemic,” Bacon said.
Katelyn Sahagian can be reached at [email protected].
