A national study by Harvard and Stanford researchers showed from 2019 to 2022, students at many schools across the state and nation fell behind in reading and math benchmarks.
The study compared students’ achievements during those three years defined by COVID-19 to typical scores during the same timeline in previous years. On average in Utah school districts, students fell behind by the equivalent of about half a school year’s worth of progress.
Not Wasatch County School District students, though, their reading and math scores surged ahead by a factor of about two months ahead of schedule.
Superintendent Paul Sweat credited the period of success, while other school districts struggled, to staff and faculty who stepped up, continuing to offer in-person classes.
“We set some pretty lofty goals as a district, and we have some very talented people on our staff,” he said. “Wasatch [County School] District 10 years ago on end-of-level tests was coming in kind of middle of the pack in the state. We decided that wasn't good enough, and that we could do better for our students. And so, there's been a very specific push for academic improvement in Wasatch for the last several years, and you can kind of follow that rise just by following some state end-of-level data.”
Sweat said schools around the country faced distinct challenges due to COVID-19, and educators everywhere went above and beyond.
But he said what his faculty and staff accomplished amid the challenges impressed him and the school board.
“We have 500-plus teachers in Wasatch County School District, and we would put them up against any other faculty in the country. We think they're that good,” Sweat said. “We were working really hard to keep those case numbers down, so that means that school nurses, the custodians — the disinfection of desks and classrooms between every class — all of those things, people worked really hard so that we didn't have to go out.”
The full study report is available here.
