Warren County R-III was among many districts across the state this year that continued to see the signs of disruptions in instruction caused by COVID-19. Learning deficits were obvious in the latest round of data from the 2021 Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) tests.

Superintendent Dr. Gregg Klinginsmith reviewed the results with school board members during their monthly meeting on Jan. 13. It was the first data to be examined in two years, given that MAP tests were not conducted in the spring of 2020 as a result of school being closed early due to COVID-19.

Testing in the spring of 2021 followed a year in which many students learned from home virtually or were frequently absent for long periods of time.

“For last year, it’s so hard to talk about the scores, because student attendance was so poor with kids required to quarantine 14 days,” said Klinginsmith. “Some kids were required to miss a whole month of school, so their student achievement just wasn’t where we wanted it to be.”

R-III saw declines in scores between 2019 and 2021 in 14 of the 19 measured areas. A particular focus of concern was mathematics, especially at the seventh- and eighth-grade levels.

“Middle school math is absolutely an area we have to get better at,” said Klinginsmith. “We had some personnel changes there and some curriculum changes and training over the summer. I’m hoping this year will be better, and we’ll keep finding ways to work on that.”

R-III did see improvement in math from the sixth grade and algebra II scores.

The most prominent area of growth for R-III was in English and language arts (ELA), which saw a rise in scores from sixth and seventh grade.

“We were pretty pleased across the board with ELA,” said Klinginsmith. “We’re doing a good job of teaching kids how to read, and that takes a partnership with parents, too. Our parents are stepping up and focusing on reading. We appreciate all of our parents who work with kids to help them excel in reading and keep them at grade level.”

Other areas tested were fifth and eighth grade science, along with biology and American government, all of which saw a decrease in scores.

“Whenever we have school, we need kids to be there, in the building,” said Klinginsmith. “That’s always been the case, and I think that was really magnified last year whenever we saw scores go down and attendance so far down. Attendance is such an important factor when it comes to student achievement. We need to find ways to get kids into the classroom as much as possible.”

R-III was not alone in its setbacks, as the averaged state MAP results saw a decline in scores across all 19 measured categories.