Utah’s State Board of Education releases report cards at the beginning of every school year assessing the previous year’s academic performance.
Across the South Summit School District, state education officials say student growth is “commendable.”
“Being commendable or higher on growth is fantastic,” Superintendent Greg Maughan said. “We want to see achievement follow that growth.”
Growth measures how students are progressing on standardized tests compared to similarly-achieving students elsewhere in Utah. South Summit’s raw test scores are “typical,” according to USBE.
Except at Silver Summit Academy: students at the small Silver Creek-area school have “commendable” achievement and “exemplary” growth.
Silver Summit is a small K-12 school with just over 100 kids that is closer to Park City than the district’s locations in Kamas.
“They've implemented some new math instruction … some newer strategies to get at deeper learning and things like that,” Maughan said. “I think a lot of that growth really comes back to the systemic approaches that they're making in their instruction.”
Growth only dropped off among math students at South Summit High School.
Another area the state says needs improvement is with programs that help students whose first language is not English. It’s an area lagging in the neighboring North Summit School District too.
Maughan says South Summit is investing in the meat and potatoes of learning to raise the baseline.
“Our theme this year is back to the basics and really focusing on improving our, what I keep calling, ‘tier one instruction,’” he said. “Tier one, meaning, the instruction that every student receives.”
Graduation rates in the South Summit School District are hovering at or above 90%, and last year, students were near-perfect on coursework the state says assesses college preparedness.
