Mesa Public Schools sees grades rise for 9th-graders, board says

Officials from Mesa Public Schools presented a report touting positive academic progress among high schoolers in the fall semester of 2023 while also presenting solutions for students falling behind on graduation credits at last week’s board meeting.

Matthew Strom, assistant superintendent of strategy and organizational effectiveness at MPS, reported an increase in the percentage of A grades from freshmen in the four core subject areas — English, biology, algebra and biology — from fall semester 2023 compared with fall semester 2022. The percentage of A grades in English increased from 25% to 26%. Biology went from 23% to 27%. World history increased to 29% from 24% the previous year, and algebra increased from 17% to 20%.

Strom also reported a decrease in F grades from fall semester 2022 to fall semester 2023. The percentage of F grades in English decreased from 14% to 10%, while algebra went from 25% to 16%. Biology decreased from 16% to 9% and world history went from 12% to 8%.

Officials from MPS spoke on how this improvement seen during the fall 2023 semester was possible. Key to that improvement was an structure where teachers, leaders, principals work together to facilitate education. A focus on analytics and data further empowered this approach.

“We brought a group of leaders together as a team. They all work together and collaborate at a high level. They all have their cognitive diverse expertise that they bring to the table” said Dr. Randy Mahlerwein, assistant superintendent of secondary 7-12. “We’ve also increased our collective IQ because teaching and learning is now seamlessly integrated with leadership, which is very involved with principals and a very targeted professional development that has supported teachers...When we get more longitudinal data over time, we’re going to see the teaming model really have an effect.”

Dr. Tracy Yslas, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning at MPS, added this data-based approach has enabled teachers and leaders to more accurately identify professional and student needs and deficiencies.

“We’ve done a lot of work with our principals in creating instructional leadership teams on their campuses. They have built a data-based culture so that they know how to look and utilize that data to determine the professional learning needs are for their staff,” Yslas said. “Within those teams at the high schools, they are really focusing on student artifacts. We have a consistent, district-wide instructional framework that we haven’t ever had before at least in my 15 years working here.”

Yslas said the district is looking at what types of practices and design for learning experiences they can implement for their students going forward.

Overall, Strom pointed out the passing rates for ninth-graders in the core subject areas has increased. He also named algebra as a common point of struggle for ninth-graders as algebra had the highest failure rate out of all core subjects last semester.

Strom said it will be important to use available resources to help students who may be failing classes and as a result would be falling behind on course credits. He pointed toward credit recovery programs and summer school as important solutions. This is especially important with math classes, where a student will have to take two math classes at once in a semester to recover credits if they don’t enroll in summer school.

“There’s a struggle constantly to try to make math relatable and relevant to what kids are trying to apply in their life,” Strom said. “The second you put them into two math classes, where that’s hard enough as is, when you’re taking away their electives, now they can’t make cross-curricular connections in the subject matter they’re learning. So there’s a bind there, when they don’t enroll in summer school and are taking credit recovery classes as a sophomore to get them on track, so we’re trying to get them to enroll in summer school.”

Analyzing the course credits accrued by ninth- through 12th-graders, Strom laid out the ideal amount of credits accrued at each grade to graduate: 5.5 by the end of freshman year, 11 after sophomore year, 16.5 after junior year, and 22 by the end of senior year in order to graduate. After fall semester 2023, Strom said 85% of freshman are on track.

Under those measures, 68.8% of sophomores, 65.6% of juniors and 65.6% of seniors are on track as well. It should be pointed out with an entire semester left before the school year is over, many district students still have time to catch up and get their course credits back on track.

Strom said in his report that factors for students falling behind on credits include excessive absences, teachers having difficulty intervening with individual students, and a disparity in reaching proficiency among students.

To address this, Strom said he believes a proactive approach to reducing absences, developing school-wide systems for early interventions, and moving to a block schedule for high schoolers are the next steps.

If the steps are successful, it may help the governing board accomplish their goal of a 83% graduation rate for the 2024 cohort.