Hoover students recovering from COVID-19 learning loss

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Students in Hoover public schools are making greater academic progress this year than last year and are beginning to exceed where they stood in some national comparisons before the COVID-19 pandemic, the system’s chief learning officer shared with the school board Tuesday night.

“Our efforts this year are paying off with positive results,” said Chris Robbins, who became chief learning officer in January.

Robbins shared the results of mid-year benchmark tests that gauge whether students are performing at grade level.

One of the school district’s goals is to have at least 75% of students performing at grade level, which would mean they are in the 50th or higher percentile rank nationally.

Mid-year tests from this winter showed that 66% of students in Hoover City Schools are on grade level in English and 63% of students are on grade level in math.

While those results are not as strong as school officials would like, the percentage of students on grade level in English is 2 percentage points higher than it was this past fall, 5 percentage points higher than it was mid-year 2021 and 4 percentage points higher than it was before the pandemic hit.

The percentage of students on grade level in math was 3 percentage points higher than it was this past fall and 6 percentage points higher than it was in mid-year 2021, but 3 percentage points lower than it was before the pandemic.

Another goal is to have no more than 10% of students in need of intervention, which would mean they fell in the 25th or lower percentile rank nationally. Results from this year’s mid-year tests showed that 15% of students in Hoover schools need intervention in English and 17% need intervention in math.

Again, while the results aren’t as strong as officials would like, the percentage of students needing intervention in English is 1 percentage point better than it was in the fall,  4 percentage points better than mid-year 2021 and 2 percentage points better than before the pandemic.

The percentage of students needing intervention in math was 3 percentage points better than it was in the fall and mid-year 2021, but still 2 percentage points worse than it was before the pandemic.

A third goal is to have at least 80% of students meeting one-year growth targets set for them. On this year’s mid-year tests, 63% of students were on track to meet growth targets in English, and 66% were on track to meet growth targets in math.

That’s 8 percentage points better in English than mid-year 2021 and 12 percentage points better in math than mid-year 2021. Students also are 4 percentage points better at being on track to meet growth targets in both English and math than before the pandemic (winter 2020).

Robbins said school officials also would like there to be equal growth between students of different races, but that is not occurring yet. There is a 10 percentage point difference between black and white students in regard to being on track in English and a 4 percentage point difference between black and white students in regard to being on track in math, he said.

Some of the highest academic growth this year occurred at some of the district’s schools with a higher percentage of students from low-income families, Robbins said.

“Our target interventions, our efforts in those areas, are showing extraordinary results,” Robbins said.

The Hoover school district this year hired 41 “interventionists” to help students recover from COVID-19 learning losses.

“We are on the right track, and we should be well positioned going into this spring” when the spring benchmark tests are given, Robbins said. “Our teachers, our principals, our school leaders should be very proud of the progress we’ve made this school year.”

But Robbins emphasized the mid-year test is just the halfway point.

“This is just a temperature check going into the spring,” he said. “It’s going to be very important that we finish strong, that we don’t take our foot off the gas. We need to continue with the interventions that have worked so well.”

Officials also will continue to study ways to address the gap in performance between black and white students and see if there are other intervention efforts that can help address that, Robbins said.

In other business Tuesday night, the school board:

  • Hired Battle Miller Construction to do restroom renovations at Shades Mountain Elementary but rejected bids for restroom renovations at Rocky Ridge, Green Valley, Gwin and Bluff Park elementary schools and Simmons Middle School because the bids came in over budget and there was only one bidder for four of those five jobs, Superintendent Dee Fowler said.
  • Hired MBA Engineers to design drainage improvements for the baseball field and tennis courts at Spain Park High School
  • Hired the Stephen Ward & Associates architectural firm to design roof improvements at Simmons.
  • Approved roofing replacement and repair jobs at Greystone and South Shades Crest elementary schools.
  • Approved the installation of air conditioning retrofit kits for 31 school buses. The district also already has ordered 20 new school buses with air conditioning that hopefully will arrive by the end of this school year, Fowler said. These two moves will give 40% of Hoover school buses air conditioning for the next school year, he said.