JUNCTION CITY — At Geary County Schools USD 475’s recent State of Education event, Dr. Deb Gustafson, associate superintendent, highlighted the school district’s accomplishments over the past two years since the COVID pandemic started.
In the Spring of 2020, USD 475 joined the ranks of school districts across the nation forced to discontinue in-person learning due to the COVID pandemic.
“We immediately went to work to create and establish an online learning platform and engaged students with their teachers by the beginning of April 2020,” Gustafson said.
While many schools across Kansas and the nation continued with the online learning platform when school opened in the Fall of 2020, USD 475 re-opened their doors for in-person learning. The school district utilized the spring and summer of 2020 determining how to create an atmosphere to mitigate the conditions associated with COVID to the maximum extent possible.
“In our conversations with personnel and the community, it was evident that our students needed to be back in school in front of their teachers and that parents needed to return to work,” Gustafson said. “We felt that our only option was to re-open our schools and welcome back students.”
She added: “Due to the cooperation of our resilient teachers, dedicated support staff, cooperative parents and amazing students, USD 475 experienced very little interruption to learning during the span of the pandemic. Our teachers continued to teach and our students continued to learn. We experienced challenges, and yet we found ways to overcome them. While lower academic performances and learning losses known as the ‘COVID slide’ have become buzz words across the nation, students in USD 475 have demonstrated academic growth on their Kansas State Assessments.”
Each public school in the state is rated by the State of Kansas on an accountability report for performance on the Kansas Assessment Program (KAP) test given to students in grades 3-8 and 10 in Math, English Language Arts, and also in grades 5, 8 and 11 for Science. Grades 4, 7 and 11 also participate in the History, Government and Social Studies Test. The KAP summative assessment is given in the spring and students score in the categories of a 4, 3, 2 or 1. The state and district goal is for students to score a 3 or 4, which exhibits sufficient or exemplary status in standard mastery.
USD 475 Geary County Schools said that their students exceeded the State of Kansas student percentages of students scoring a 3 or 4 in all subject areas in at least one category during 2021 assessments.
“During the pandemic, while most schools across the state experienced the ‘COVID slide,’ our students demonstrated a 2 percent growth in performance across the board,” Gustafson said. “We are proud of our students and staff and look forward to maintaining this momentum during our Spring 2022 assessments.”