<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=1I4dWu_1FW9ylMU00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1I4dWu_1FW9ylMU00" width="1880" height="1165" ><figcaption>Photo by Kari Alfonso/ Pexels.com</figcaption></figure>Philomath School District students outscored their peers statewide in most grades and subjects on the latest round of state assessments although steep declines at 11th grade, where fewer than half of students took the tests, tempered the news. The Oregon Department of Education on Thursday released results from the 2025-26 Oregon Statewide Assessments, which students took last spring. Students in grades 3-8 and 11 take tests in English language arts and math, and students in grades 5, 8 and 11 also take a science test. “I am encouraged about the results,” Philomath Superintendent Susan Halliday said. “We’ve seen some gains in some essential areas, not by a lot necessarily, but in some instances by good percentages.” Halliday said she was especially pleased with increases in English language arts and in secondary math. Philomath’s proficiency rates topped state averages in 12 of the 17 grade and subject categories tested. Districtwide, 46.6% of students tested proficient in English language arts, compared with 43.8% statewide. In math, the district was at 34.6% compared with 32.9% statewide, and in science it was at 36.5% compared with 30.6%. Unlike the state, however, the district’s overall figures dipped from the year before, falling 0.2 percentage points in English language arts, 1.3 points in math and 10 points in science. The steep 11th-grade declines weighed heavily on those totals. Statewide, proficiency rose 1.4 percentage points in math, 0.8 points in English language arts and 0.6 points in science, the second consecutive year of increases in all three subjects. Oregon students overall remain about 8 percentage points behind pre-pandemic achievement levels. Sixth grade was Philomath’s standout. Districtwide, sixth-grade proficiency in English language arts climbed from 40.2% to 52.3%, and math proficiency rose from 26.1% to 36.4%. Sixth-grade reading has now improved two years in a row, up from 35.3% in 2023-24. At Philomath Middle School, sixth graders gained 15 percentage points in English language arts and 15.3 points in math. Middle school math improved at every grade, and the district’s seventh and eighth graders joined the sixth graders in outscoring the state. Eighth-grade math proficiency has climbed from 21.2% in 2023-24 to 34.1%. Other strong showings compared with state averages came in fourth-grade English language arts (53% vs. 43.5% statewide) and eighth-grade science (39.1% vs. 27.7%). Halliday credited the district’s size and its intervention programs. “I think that our size and our attention to detail really pays off in the long run,” she said. “I think our kindergarten through eighth grade response to instruction and intervention programs makes a huge difference in student gain.” The results at 11th grade were a different story. “The place where I’m not feeling so good are the declines in everything at the 11th grade level,” Halliday said. Districtwide, 11th-grade proficiency fell 23.8 percentage points in English language arts (from 69.6% to 45.8%), 28 points in math (from 47.1% to 19.1%) and 33.5 points in science (from 71% to 37.5%). Halliday pointed to participation as a factor. Only 40.5% of the district’s 11th graders took the English language arts test, 39.7% took the math test and 40.5% took the science test, she said, adding that at every other grade, participation ranged from 87.4% in seventh-grade math to 98.3% in third-grade English language arts. “So what that means is less than half of the 11th graders are participating in the English language arts assessment,” Halliday said. “Even if you had a class of 100, you’re looking at 50 students who participated. Everybody counts as two percentage points. And so, the more students we have that opt out of the testing, the more discrepant the numbers get.” Schools are required by state and federal law to administer the tests, but Oregon law allows parents to opt their children out. Statewide participation averaged approximately 88% across all grades and subjects this year, compared with about 95% before the pandemic, and fewer than 80% of high schoolers statewide took the tests. At Philomath High School, participation was 34.5% in English language arts and 33.3% in math, similar to or higher than the previous year’s rates of 35.5% and 25.5%. Among PHS students who tested, English language arts proficiency rose from 69.2% to 71.4%, while math fell from 46.4% to 33.3% and science fell from 71.4% to 59.3%. Math proficiency at PHS has now declined two years in a row, down from 50% in 2023-24. The districtwide 11th-grade figures also include students at the alternative Philomath Academy, where 9.1% of 11th graders who tested were proficient in English language arts, fewer than 5% in math and 16.7% in science. The academy’s results were not reported for the previous year. Small class sizes also magnify swings in the numbers, Halliday said. “If you’ve got a hundred students in a class, each student counts as the 1%,” she said. “If that fluctuates down or up, then … a student could count for more than a single percentage point, and so … it throws your numbers into play a little bit.” That effect is even more pronounced at the district’s smallest schools. “Especially at Blodgett, if you have only four or five students per grade level, the percentages can swing in a heartbeat,” Halliday said. Elementary math was another area of decline. Districtwide, third-grade math proficiency dropped from 45% to 38.1% and fourth-grade proficiency fell from 43.2% to 35.6%, leaving both grades about 3 points below the state average. Fifth graders improved slightly to 35.5%, above the state’s 32.4%. Halliday noted that last school year was the first year of a new math curriculum for kindergarten through fifth grade. “Because of its newness and the nature of that instruction, we’re hopeful that we’re going to start to see some turns in that over the course of the next year or two or three,” she said. She said the elementary and primary schools were deliberate in choosing the new materials, basing the decision on both local and state assessment results. Eighth-grade English language arts was the only middle school result below the state average. Proficiency fell from 38.6% to 34.3%, compared with 41.5% statewide. “It’s one of those anomalies I haven’t been able to figure out,” Halliday said. The district’s figures also include Kings Valley Charter School, which saw declines across all three subjects. Its math proficiency fell from 22.9% to 7.3%, science from 31.3% to 8.6% and English language arts from 34.7% to 25%. Halliday said the district can identify meaningful trends in the state data, particularly in grades where class sizes stay consistent from year to year. The next step, she said, is comparing the state results with the district’s own local assessments, which track gains for individual students. “Then it’s about going back and being able to say, so how does this compare to our local assessment that we really want to put a lot of our stock in?” she said. Results for individual districts and schools are available on the Oregon Department of Education’s Online Report Card. </div></body>

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Philomath School District students outscored their peers statewide in most grades and subjects on the latest round of state assessments although steep declines at 11th grade, where fewer than half of students took the tests, tempered the news. The Oregon Department of Education on Thursday released results from the 2025-26...

Philomath students top state averages on most tests

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Philomath School District students outscored their peers statewide in most grades and subjects on the latest round of state assessments although steep decl

Philomath students top state averages on most tests

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