Yorkville Middle School student grades nose dive amid pandemic

The amount of Yorkville Middle School students earning Cs or better in every class fell sharply last semester, down 22% compared to the end of the 2019-2020 school year.

The data presented to the Yorkville School District Board of Education at a meeting Monday, Feb. 22 was concerning and unsurprising for school officials. Notably, the COVID-19 pandemic had a marginal impact on grades at the high school level, with students even outperforming some pre-pandemic years.

“When you think about the lack of connectedness that our middle school and high school kids have had to any kind of athletic program, activities, music - that alone has a direct correlation to student success in the classroom,” said Superintendent Tim Shimp.

At the middle school, the extent of the drop varies greatly by grade, demographic and learning model. Eighth graders had a more severe decline than seventh graders, dropping from 90% of students getting Cs or better before the pandemic to 61% by last semester’s end.

Students who attended in-person classes to some degree also far outperformed e-learning students. In addition, grades improved throughout the middle school between the first quarter of this school year to early February.

Yet the starkest drops and smallest progress depended on race more than any other factor. Before the pandemic, about 90% of white students and 80% of black students were earning Cs or better.

By the end of last semester, that number shifted to 65% of white students and 32% of black students.

“It is of grave concern that we have quite a few students that are getting a D or F in at least one of their attended courses,” said Dr. Nick Baughman, the district’s associate superintendent of learning and instruction. “But it is encouraging when you look at the nine-week mark at the middle school compared to the 18-week mark, in all of our subcategories students are showing signs of improvement or achievement.”

Though the extent of that improvement also varies by race. Over the last two quarters of school, white students had a 15% increase in the number of students who received Cs or better. Black students had a 5% increase.

District officials did not have data showing grade declines by subject matter, but they stressed that a broader remediation effort was underway at the middle school. The push includes academic coaching, after-school tutoring, home visits and the addition of an academic study hall.

“We’ve managed to have some very strategic responses to remediate our students, and as we become better at that remediation our students are responding positively,” said Lisa Adler, the principal of Yorkville Middle School. “There are many systems that we put in place that will certainly last well beyond the pandemic.”

District officials generally blamed the dive in middle school performance on the pandemic. Middle schoolers still in the start of adolescence, officials said, were just less emotionally equipped to handle the stresses of the last year than their high schoolers counterparts far closer to adulthood. That divide played out clearly with performance at the high school level, with seniors earning some of the best grades officials had seen from out-going students.

“Our freshman have probably the lowest success rate that I’ve ever seen in my entire career,” said high school principal David Travis. “Those younger level students - it’s been a tough transition for them to go from middle school to high school... Our seniors have a lot of experience. Our juniors have a lot of experience. They know how to self-regulate, self-advocate. They know how to time manage and organize. At the younger level, for our teacher’s it’s been a struggle.”