Some schools in the Helena district did better than others in various categories, according to recently released information from the Office of Public Instruction, and some fell short of the state percentages.
OPI released district report cards for the 2022-2023 school year per the Every Student Succeeds Act, which is an accessible way for OPI to show how Montana schools are doing in their educational practices, according to OPI.
The data, released Thursday, shows reading, math and science percentages in progress scores and how the numbers within districts compare to state numbers. The school district could not immediately provide comment on the results Friday.
The report card separates proficiency levels into four categories: novice, nearing proficient, proficient and advanced. Data can be accessed by district and can be narrowed down to school-specific numbers.
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Other portions of the report card include progress percentages for the state, districts and specific schools in reading, math and school attendance.
Student Achievement Scores
In the high school district, Capital and Helena high schools were more advanced in math and reading compared to the state.
The two schools had 23% of their students labeled as advanced in mathematics compared to the state’s 15%.
In the reading category, the schools had 32% of their population in the advanced column while the state had 17%.
Capital High School had a 17% margin in the advanced column for reading, leaving the school with 34%. Helena High School had a higher novice percentage in the science category compared to the state and district percentages, showing slight signs of struggling.
There were 30% of students labeled as novices in science compared to the district and state average of 26%.
Helena Public Schools' elementary district, documented by OPI as grades K-8 even though the district separates its high school and elementary districts K-5 and 6-12, ranked fairly even with the state in math, reading and science.
Math had 17% of students in the advanced column, while the state’s percentage was 15%, and in reading and science the district had 20% and 22% of its students in the advanced category.
C.R. Anderson Middle School showed proficiency in reading and science with math leveling out with state and district averages.
The school had about 15% in the novice category in reading compared to the district’s 25% and state’s 30%. That trend continued into science with the school registering only 9% of its population as novice, with the state at 26% and district at 16%.
There was 30% of the school’s students labeled as advanced in science compared to the district’s 22% and state’s 12%.
Helena Middle School shared similar numbers in math, reading and science, with a majority of students being proficient and advanced in all three categories.
Bryant and Broadwater elementary schools showed signs of struggling within the student body in the three subjects compared to state and district averages.
Bryant had 48% of its students as novices in math, 53% in reading and 31% in science. Broadwater had 40% of its students as novices in math, 39% in reading and most of its students in science labeled as nearing proficient and proficient.
Jefferson Elementary School stood out among the elementary schools with minimal percentages ranked in the novice category of the three subjects and most in the advanced or proficient categories.
The school showed only 5% as novices in math and science and 10% in reading, while 50% of its students were labeled as advanced in reading.
Student Achievement Progress Scores
Data from OPI showed the progress of each elementary district and school in reading and math with a small chart comparing the numbers to the state percentages and district levels, if looking at an individual school.
For the high school districts, the progress data showed percentages in which students are graduating in four years and if they are college- or career-ready.
The Helena Public Schools high school district showed 87% of its students graduating in four years compared to the state’s 85%.
There were 78% of Helena high schoolers prepared for college or careers after graduating, which was 16% more than the state.
Specifically, Capital High saw 88% of its students graduate in four years and 84% of its students career- or college-ready upon graduation.
Helena High School was lower in both categories compared to its crosstown rival, with 86% of its students graduating in four years and 72% career- or college-ready.
In the elementary and middle schools, 51% showed progress in reading, and the state showed roughly the same percentage. There were 54% of the K-8 population that showed signs of progress in math compared to the state’s 50%.
Between the two middle schools in the Helena school district, C.R. Anderson showed more progress than Helena Middle School in reading and math based on the data, with 52% progress in reading and 61% in math.
Even though Bryant Elementary School showed 53% of its students as novices in reading, the student population showed 60% progress in reading, according to the OPI data.
Hawthorne Elementary School showed progress in reading and math in the mid-to-high 60% range, with most of its students being advanced or nearing proficient in reading and science.
Continuing its standout trend, Jefferson Elementary School, which already had low percentages in the novice category for the student achievement scores, was seeing above 60% in progress in math and reading.
Kessler Elementary School showed significant progress in reading with 77%, even though many of the school’s students were put in the novice category for math, reading and science.
Attendance
School attendance was documented in the data provided by OPI and a majority of the schools in the district sat around 30%-40% of its students with 95% attendance during the 2022-2023 academic year.
The high school district saw 36% of its students with 95% attendance during the school year compared to the state’s 33%.
Capital High School saw 41% of its students with regular attendance, while Helena High School saw only 30%.
The elementary district saw the same percentage of students with 95% attendance as the high school district along with the state’s 33%.
C.R. Anderson saw 33% of its students with consistent attendance while Helena Middle School saw 37% of its student body attendance.
Elementary schools sat between 30% and 45% of attendance from the schools’ students during the academic year.