Administrators in the Pendleton School District presented a report chronicling the academic growth of district students during the School Board meeting on June 13^th. The data presented showed something that was not surprising to school board members – many students came into this past school year with a significant lack of grade-level skills and behaviors that adversely impacted their learning. This was expected due to students learning online for more than one year during the pandemic. The good news, however, is that the report shows that many of Pendleton’s students achieved a great deal of academic growth between August 2021 and June 2022.

All PSD students in kindergarten through eighth grade are tested in reading and math three times during the year using iReady testing. They are tested in the fall when they first start school, in the winter or middle of the year and then in the spring before school ends. According to Matt Yoshioka, Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment, to make the report less cumbersome, he compared the fall data to the spring data, not including the winter testing data.

Below are some data points about this year’s results:

Tier 1 = at or above grade level
Tier 2 = below grade level
Tiers 3 and 4 = significantly below grade level

Pendleton Early Learning Center

Reading
Tier 1 – Fall score was 3% and Spring was 74%, a large increase of students at or above grade level
Tier 4 – Fall score was 65% and Spring was 6%, a large decrease of students below grade level

Math
Tier 1 – Fall score was 0% and Spring was 67%, a large increase of students at or above grade level
Tier 4 – Fall score was 95% and Spring was 15%, a large decrease of students below grade level

District Third Graders & Fifth Graders

Third Grade students increased from 31% to 57% in Tier 1 in Reading and 9% to 37% in Tier 1 in Math
Fifth Grade students increased from 23% to 51% in Tier 1 in Reading and 19% to 55% in Tier 1 in Math

Yoshioka said helping a significantly larger number of students learn at grade level is a testament to the hard work that district staff and students have put in during this school year. “It’s been a challenging year, but also a good year, and we see that kids are learning, and we are closing some of the achievement gaps we wanted to,” he said.

Pendleton SD iReady Report 21-22
PELC Reading Data 21-22
PELC Math Data 21-22