Iowa City School Board Talks Test Scores, Demographics

With two high schools scoring among the best in the state in the ACT test, it is perhaps not a surprise that Iowa City performed well in testing last year.

Pam Ehle, the district's director of instruction, presented a breakdown of the Iowa City School District's most recent K-12 testing results to the school board during its meeting Tuesday night. The figures included Iowa Test of Educational Development and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills results.

Board member Gayle Klouda was absent.

Ehle told the board that the district continues its tradition of scoring high, scoring about both state and national averages.

"Overall as you look at the achievement in the various subject areas they are vary constant and they are above the national average," Ehle said.

Iowa City students outperformed national standards in several subjects, including math, reading, social studies and science.

Ehle said students in the top tier scored about the same as they had in previous years. Meanwhile, progress had been made by students in the lower quartile of achievement, with some students making significant strides that were also greater in proportion than the national average.

"They are improving, some of them slight improvement, and the others are improving in an away that I would call statistically significant," Ehle said.

The report also stated that Iowa City finished with a composite ACT score of 25.5 -- the district's highest composite score in 25 years -- a full 3.2 points higher than the state average and 4.4 points higher than the national composite average. You can see more detailed ACT scores in the PDF attached to this story.

With these results, the district achieved the yearly board goal of attaining testing results as good or better than the previous year.

Board member Sarah Swisher said there is still room for improvement, especially in eliminating pockets of poverty in certain schools, a phenomena which has been shown to decrease student performance compared to schools with a healthy mixture of students of all different backgrounds.

"The thing that we have not addressed sufficiently in my mind is the demographics of our individual buildings," Swisher said.

Superintendent Steve Murley agreed that this could be improved upon, but that he is very pleased with the district's school test scores.

"We do unbelievably well," Murley said. "Those kids at the top tend to stay at the top, while those kids at the bottom have been showing some remarkable progress."

North Corridor Continues to Be Quickest Growing

Geoffrey Smith, Iowa geography doctoral candidate, presented his preliminary demographic projections to the board for the 2011-2015 school years.

Smith, using data based on where the students lived and not factoring in special education students or transfers in or out of the district, said that he projected a roughly 1 percent growth for the school district over the next five years, or a net gain of 792 new students, from 11,101 students to 11,893 students.

"You can see we're projecting a slight growth for this year and continual growth for the next five years," Smith said.

Smith said he would know more as more data is made clear, but that he expects his projections for the total population to be within three percent of the eventual total. When asked for clarification by board member Tuyet Dorau, Smith said that his projections are generally conservative, and that the actual enrollment numbers would likely be higher.

While growth is slowing in other parts of the district, the North Central Junior High feeder system, located primarily in North Liberty is expected to continue growing at a higher than district rate each year.

"They've been growing in the past and they are going to continue to grow in the future," Smith said.

Smith said he also determined through his analysis of the district's demographics that 15 percent of the district's students do not attend their neighborhood school. The topic of neighborhood schools has been a controversial one during recent .

New Year of School Running Smoothly So Far

Superintendent Murley and Paul Bobek, the district's director of administrative services, gave an update on the first few days of the new year of school.

Murley rattled off a series of happy first week events, and Bobek provided an update on the bus situation. Bobek said there are five more busses running this year, bringing the total to 105.

 "I'd say we had a normal start of the school year," Bobek said.

Meanwhile, the district is working to move from its current administration building at 509 Dubuque Street to its new location in the former Iowa City Press-Citizen building on Dodge Street.

The board unanimouly approved $350,000 worth of physical plant equipment levy funds to aide in the relocation, which should be partially done in September and is scheduled to be all the way completed by January.