Elmhurst D205 Acknowledges Falling SAT Scores

ELMHURST, IL – It took nearly three weeks, but Elmhurst School District 205 officials this week publicly acknowledged the bad news on York High's dropping SAT scores.

That was different from last month when the state released the data.

At Tuesday's school board meeting, Associate Superintendent Scott Grens spoke about the dropping SAT scores in math and English language arts.

He presented data showing that Elmhurst finished sixth with math SAT scores last school year among eight similar districts. It was fifth in English language arts.

"There are definitely opportunities here for improvement," he said.

This is in contrast to the standardized test scores for Elmhurst's elementary and middle schools, where students made up most of the ground lost during the pandemic.

"We had great growth," school board President Kara Caforio said. "I got criticized for celebrating that we had some wins, which is incredible."

"You just don't want to breeze over it," Grens responded.

He was likely referring to Patch's story about the district's apparent avoidance of the topic of the dropping SAT results. It was headlined, "Elmhurst D-205 Breezes Past Bad News."

Grens said the district is not satisfied with the current test scores.

"We know we can get beyond where we were in 2019 because we have already demonstrated it in several of those areas," he said.

Board member Athena Arvanitis focused on the decline in math SAT scores.

"SAT has seen a decline nationwide," she said, "but our decline is a little bit steeper than your average.

Arvanitis, an administrator in the New Trier High School District, said Elmhurst should look at its curriculum, rigor and sequence of math classes.

"Something seems like it's not aligned," she said. "We all want to see that turnaround, and it's a matter of how we do it and how quickly we can do it."

Grens said the district is already doing that work. And Superintendent Keisha Campbell said officials are approaching the issue with a "level of urgency."