LEWISTOWN — Chief Academic Officer Steven DeArment delivered the annual academic progress report to the Mifflin County School District Board of Directors at its Thursday Committee of the Whole meeting.

DeArment covered yearly performance on standardized tests, varied academic improvement plans for schools in the district and methods to improve overall academic performance.

DeArment began the presentation by discussing Mifflin County Junior High School receiving a letter regarding the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit program due to low combined 2024-25 math and reading PSSA and/or Keystone Exam scores among eighth-grade students.

DeArment said that this program “enables eligible students residing within the boundaries of low-achieving schools to apply for a scholarship to attend another public or non-public school.”

He added that a low-achieving school is a public elementary or secondary school that ranks in the bottom 15% of its designation based on combined math and reading scores from the previous school year.

DeArment stated that the eighth-grade students who took the Algebra 1 Keystone Exam outpaced the state average, but the combined PSSA scores were significantly below state averages, prompting the letter to be sent.

He highlighted that the switch to online testing may have contributed to this performance dip.

“Based upon achievement and growth and a number of other factors, schools can be placed on some level of school improvement,” DeArment said of a separate measure of school performance in the district.

He shared that in this measure of school improvement the most strict level of school improvement is comprehensive support and improvement with the remaining levels in order from most to least strict include additional targeted support and improvement and targeted support and improvement.

These levels of improvement target the subgroups affected like students with disabilities to increase levels of achievement, growth, graduation rates, regular attendance and other factors.

“You get placed in the school improvement, not based upon your overall results, but about the results of a specific subgroup or subgroups,” DeArment said.

Mifflin County Junior High School was recently removed from targeted support and improvement for students with disabilities, despite having received the letter regarding the Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit program.

Mifflin County High School is currently in targeted support and improvement for students with disabilities, while Mifflin County Middle School is in targeted support and improvement for students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students and Hispanic students.

Lewistown Elementary School is in targeted support and improvement for students with disabilities.

DeArment added that 2024-25 PSSA results from third- to seventh-grade in the district are “generally lagging behind the state averages. There are some exceptions.”

Directors including E. Terry Styers, R. Brian Ketchem, Brent Erb and others expressed that the state should offer more comprehensive results based on students taking the standardized tests to better understand what methods could help those students improve.

“You look back at the content of questions that your children did poorly on. Then you tried to refocus your instruction to address those deficiencies,” Styers said.

DeArment said the next steps to improve overall testing performance include focusing on mathematics in grades K-12 by implementing the i-Ready program, changing course sequences, and math interventions.

He added that the next steps to improve reading scores are to implement structured literacy by using Act 47 of 2025 (which requires an evidence-based reading curriculum) and to identify a suitable core reading program.

Following the presentation, Director Jessica Baumgardner said, “I would like to hear more about what it looks like, what our interventions are going to look like, what the plan is to improve the bottom 15% of the state that we’re failing our students if we’re OK with being there.”

DeArment said the next steps include a survey assessing the resources the district uses, forming a committee to decide which resources to use moving forward and continuing to evaluate options to improve across the schools.