VIENNA — Maries R-1 counselor Natalie Martin presented a review of the district’s 2022-23 Annual Performance Report (APR) during the Feb. 27 school board meeting.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) prepares an APR for each school district around the state. The APR evaluates how well a district follows the Missouri School Improvement Program. Districts’ performances on their reports contribute to DESE’s recommendations for accreditation classifications.

Before getting into the data, Martin said percentages included in the APR do not tell the whole story because Maries R-1’s small class sizes mean one student can represent a few percentage points. She used the four-year cohort graduation rate as an example.

“It’s 94 percent,” Martin said. “Where are the other 6 percent? When you’re talking about the size of classes we have, 5 percent is not even two kids. Sometimes those numbers can look really big, but when you really think about our student population, when you turn those percentages into actual numbers, it’s really not.”

Maries R-1’s graduation rate stayed nearly constant between 2022 and 2023 with a slight dip from 94.74 percent to 94.29 percent. The number stayed above the state rate of 89.87 percent. The dropout rate increased from zero to 1.2 percent while staying under the 1.8 percent rate for the state.

The district’s rate of students receiving free and reduced lunches increased by more than 10 percent. It rose from 26.3 percent in 2022 to 36.7 percent in 2023. The state rate increased by more than 5 percent during that period. Maries R-1 stayed below the state rate of 47.4 percent.

The APR reports measure attendance by the percentage of students who attend school 90 percent of the time. At Maries R-1, the rate increased from 83.7 in 2022 to 84.6 in 2023. The rate was higher than the state rate of 76.6 percent.

Overall, Maries R-1 scored 76 percent on the 2022-23 APR, which was a decrease from 78 percent the previous year. Factors contributing to the overall score include Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) test data, college entrance exams, classes offered to high school students, graduation rate and graduate follow-ups. Other sources of points include school improvement plans, climate and culture surveys, kindergarten-readiness tests, attendance and vocational programs. Martin said most schools in the state saw decreases because the grading for the APR changed beginning last year. Next year’s data should show an increase because the district erroneously counted students from Visitation Interparish School who came to campus for elective classes in the 2022-23 data.

In categories that measure student performance, a district must have at least 95 percent student participation to earn any points. In science, one student was unable to take the required test to count toward the test, which caused the student participation to drop to 94.6 percent and resulted in no points for science testing.

Maries R-1 is behind the state average in English language arts (ELA) testing. The percentage of students statewide who scored proficient or advanced in MAP testing for grades 3-8 and English II was about 43 percent while it was about 37 percent in the district.

The district also trailed the state average in mathematics testing. The percentage of students statewide who scored proficient or advanced in MAP testing for grades 3-8 and Algebra I was about 40 percent while it was about 28 percent in the district.

“We’re obviously not where we want to be, but we’re growing,” Martin said.

Maries R-1 closed some of the gap with the state average in science although its 35 percent of proficient and advanced scores on the fifth- and eighth-grade MAP and Biology tests was still below the 38 percent for the state.

The district outpaced the state average in social studies, which only tests high school Government classes. Maries R-1 scored about 45 percent proficient or advanced compared to about 39 percent for the state.

The presentation also broke each building down by its contribution to the district’s overall APR score. The elementary school scored 66.9 percent of its possible points compared to 59.1 percent the prior year. Martin said most of the elementary school’s points come from MAP testing data. The state clusters scores into four categories: participation (lowest scoring), approaching, on track and target (highest scoring). ELA scores at the elementary school were on track. Math and science scores were approaching the goal. Schools can earn points not only through score status but also score growth from previous years.

The middle school dropped from 60.1 percent of points earned in 2022 to 19 percent of points earned in 2023. Martin said the drop was caused by the miscounting of Visitation students toward the district’s total numbers. Counting those students meant that less than 95 percent of the district’s middle school students took the necessary tests.

“Next year we will take them out,” Superintendent Teresa Messersmith said. She added that the system for reporting to DESE was new and the administrators were still learning it.

Board member Matt Novak asked about the ramifications of the reports.

Messersmith said the reports contribute to the district’s accreditation. Although the district cannot go back and correct the reporting mistake, a one-year drop will not have an effect, especially because the overall score is still above the state average.

The high school dropped from 90.6 percent of points in 2022 to 80.6 percent in 2023. Students hit the target score in ELA and scored approaching in math. High school science lost all points because participation was below 95 percent.

The score for the high school awards points for college and career readiness criteria relating to student participation and performance on several tests such as the ACT, ASVAB, WorkKeys and Accuplacer. The VHS graduating class of 2023 had an average ACT score of 20.4 compared to the 20.1 state average. The school’s average rebounded from a slight decrease below the state average in the previous year. The rate of VHS seniors taking the ACT, 78.8 percent, was also above the state average of 65.7 percent.

The presentation also included data from last year’s junior class’ WorkKeys tests. Nearly 70 percent of the students earned at least one certificate showing job readiness.

At the end of the presentation, Martin said she believes the score will increase next year because the district will correct the data during reporting.