Geary USD 475 elementary and middle school students (third through eighth grade) have been making big gains in math since 2019. In a recent New York Times article, USD 475 was shown to not only rank significantly higher than its Kansas counterparts in mathematics, but also better than the United States average. Each year since 2019, USD 475’s math testing scores have improved, which also included an increase during the COVID-19 pandemic while most schools across the United States dropped significantly below the U.S. average.
In the fall of 2020, USD 475 made the decision to return to school while also offering a virtual opportunity for any health compromised families. During that time, 83 percent of the district’s students opted to return to schools, while 17 percent continued a virtual platform.“ At that time, we truly felt the best learning environment for our students was to have direct contact with our teachers,” said Dr. Deb Gustafson, USD 475 Associate Superintendent. “Our teachers stayed the course and provided quality math instruction to our students while most of the nation was continuing to figure out a virtual learning environment.
The decision in 2020 to return to the classroom has paid off as USD 475 is now seeing the benefits throughout its schools, daily. “The availability of the COVID-19 emergency relief funds helped us focus on adopting a comprehensive curriculum based on mathematics best practices for core instruction while also supporting acceleration and remediation of learning through small group instruction, progress monitoring and individual intervention,” said Gustafson. She went on to explain that purposeful and recurring professional development has truly allowed for USD 475’s gains to continue. “Ultimately COVID-19 allowed us to completely revamp our math curriculum to specifically match the needs of our students, while also aligning with the adopted math standards. Our decisions have paid off and our students have continued to outperform their peers in math since COVID-19. We are working hard to maintain this upward trend,” said Gustafson.
Read More: New York Times Article
Geary USD 475 Communications Coordinator