Murphysboro principals cite steady testing gains but flag math concerns at high school

Principals for Murphysboro CUSD 186 presented K–12 assessment updates on Feb. 14, reporting winter STAR benchmarking growth at the elementary level, improving Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAAR) cohorts at lower grades, and mixed results at the high school.

Elementary STAR data showed growth from fall to winter, with the presenter reporting a 22-percentage-point increase in students rated "at or above" in benchmarks for some grades and targeted interventions for roughly 11 students in urgent intervention. "The green has gone up 22%. We've lost kids in the other categories as we're bumping them up," the elementary principal said, describing weekly progress monitoring and targeted interventions using programs such as Renaissance STAR, iReady, Rocket Math and others.

Middle-school data showed post-pandemic recovery trends in the IAAR results with cohort tracking used to compare 2021–23 outcomes and subgroup disaggregation by race, ELL and students with IEPs (some small-group data redacted due to low counts). Presenters said the district adopted STAR across K–5 to provide continuous growth tracking and noted the Illinois Tutoring Initiative partnership (administered by Illinois State University with SIU support) as a supplemental intervention.

At the high school, presenters said graduation rates have returned to the state average after a COVID-related drop (previously 74.5%). Ninth-grade on-track is 83.2%, but the district flagged high-school math performance as concerning: "This is probably our most alarming data point that we have, that we have dropped to 11.3%." District staff described a repeater math course, credit-recovery program (90 courses ≈ 45 credits completed as of Jan. 30), and summer-school plans to help cohorts behind in math.

Board members asked for multi-year trend data (for example, counts of Illinois State Scholars over the last five years), and staff agreed to provide additional trend breakdowns in future reports. The board discussed tutoring partnerships and comprehensive school improvement resources for schools with state designations.

Next steps: staff said they will provide additional trend data on request and continue to implement targeted tutoring and intervention strategies; no new curriculum purchases or broad policy adoptions were approved at the Feb. 14 meeting.