Supercast

Transcription coming soon.

Transcription coming soon.

Transcription coming soon.

Karen Smith:
I played with Andrea Bocelli and Yo-Yo Ma. And...

Anthony Godfrey:
You played with Yo-Yo Ma?

Karen Smith:
Yeah, on my birthday actually.

Anthony Godfrey:
What do you love most about teaching math?

Karen Smith:
Well, where do I start? Teaching math is awesome. I love math, first of all. It's just so fun. The way everything works, it's like a giant puzzle.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Before she was inspiring middle schoolers to love math, South Hills Middle School teacher Karen Smith was performing on stages alongside iconic artists like Stevie Wonder, Yo-Yo Ma, and John Williams. On this episode of the Supercast, we sit down with Ms. Smith to explore her incredible transition from freelance cellist to dedicated educator. Hear how she traded life on stage for a second career in Jordan School District and learn how her unique journey helped her find a passion for teaching math that runs as deep as her love for music. We're talking today with Karen Smith, who teaches math here at South Hills Middle School and is an extraordinary cello player. Introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your career.

Karen Smith:
My name is Karen Smith. I'm super happy to be here. I started my career as a musician, so I was a professional cellist first, and that started with . . .  after getting my bachelor's degree in Texas at Rice University, my husband actually won a Fulbright to study French horn in Munich. So I went with him and studied cello there. And after about a year I got a job as, it's called a practicontan, which is like an intern at an orchestra called the Württemberger Schaffel-Hermany-Reutlingen. And so I did that for a year, studied in Germany, took some auditions. We kind of got tired of being completely broke and having no money. So we wound up coming back to America and made a home in Texas in Dallas this time, and taught a bunch of lessons there but also had our freelance careers there. So for about 17 years I was freelancing in the Dallas area. I got to do a lot of fun stuff.

Anthony Godfrey:
What does freelancing look like? When you're a freelance musician in the Dallas area, what does that look like?

Karen Smith:
It is incredibly different all the time. So, one day you're playing a concert on stage just standard classical rep with the Fort Worth Symphony and the next day you're playing a church service and the next day you're playing a recording session for a movie score and then maybe a couple days after that year playing a rock concert. It's just all kinds of stuff. Oh, and then maybe like a wedding or a party or...

Anthony Godfrey:
So the whole range?

Karen Smith:
The whole range, yep.

Anthony Godfrey:
And was Dallas a fertile area for you to be able to play cello frequently?

Karen Smith:
It was. It was a great place for freelance work.

Anthony Godfrey:
So tell me, since I'm a pop culture junkie, about some of the movie soundtracks and the concerts that you've played.

Karen Smith:
Okay, so the movie score that I recorded that is most well known, is not that well known. It's for a movie called “A Ghost Story” that starred Casey Affleck, if anyone's familiar with that. And other concerts I've played with people that you might have heard of. My very first rock concert ever was with Don Henley, the lead singer of the Eagles. That was when I was in college. I had no idea who the Eagles were at that point.

Anthony Godfrey:
So were you playing “The Heart of the Matter” in the background there? What did you play?

Karen Smith:
I think it was called “Remember the River” or something. And then I played a concert with Tommy Lee, the drummer from Motley Crew.

Anthony Godfrey:
Motley Crew. Yes.

Karen Smith:
Yes. So he used to have a reality TV show called Rockstar Supernova. And the winner of Rockstar Supernova's prize was to go around the country playing concerts with Tommy Lee. And they hired a string quartet at every stop, and one of the stops was Dallas, so we played a string quartet with Tommy Lee. That was my first ever fist bump on stage, by the way. I had never had a fist bump before, because you know when we were kids, we didn't do that, right? It was like high five.

Anthony Godfrey:
When you played with the symphony, you didn't do a fist bump?

Karen Smith:
There are no . . .

Anthony Godfrey:
No fist bumps as the guest conductor walks off stage, there wasn't a fist bump to the first chair.

Karen Smith:
I feel like there should be.

Anthony Godfrey:
There really should be. But Tommy Lee, the fist bump, that makes sense.

Karen Smith:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
Did he throw like drumsticks into the crowd and you threw your bow into the crowd? Or how exactly did that work?

Karen Smith:
My bow cost more than his drumsticks.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay. I hope that's fair. That would be a bad idea. So you played for Tommy Lee, but it sounds like he was nice.

Karen Smith:
He was nice.

Anthony Godfrey:
And how was Don Henley?

Karen Smith:
Super nice.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah.

Karen Smith:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
Now I understand that on these sorts of gigs, you don't get a lot of notice. It's not like you're practicing for weeks and weeks. It's like, “hey, we need you tomorrow.” Tell me about what the timing looks like.

Karen Smith:
Oh, and sometimes you do get called a little bit more beforehand, but what you don't get ahead of time is the music. Usually you walk in and then the music is on the stand and they're like, “well, this is what you play.” So you have to be adept at sight-reading, being able to play the music the first time you see it. That's just part of our skill set as freelance musicians.

Anthony Godfrey:
And how would you find work as a freelance musician? Would it be word of mouth? Is that mostly what it is? I assume you don't go on Facebook Marketplace and say, "We'll play water music for whatever."

Karen Smith:
It is absolutely word of mouth. So it's helpful if you have like one or two connections in an area when you move there, and they can like vouch for the fact that you are -- you can play your instrument and that you will arrive on time and not just totally forget and sleep through it and be there with a good attitude also. As you can imagine, it's really competitive to get any work. So if you mess up one of those things, you're done.

Anthony Godfrey:
Now, you said that your husband played French horn, and I understand that, as I've talked with performers over the years, that the brass has a certain kind of personality. The strings have a kind of personality. So do French horn players generally get along with cellists, or is this a rare combination?

Karen Smith:
That's so funny that you ask that. Yeah, brass players are known to be a little sillier than string players. String players are known to be kind of more serious. Yeah, I should say at this point that my mom is also jealous of my dad as a trombone player, so the whole like brass string thing works well in my family.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, so you were just following tradition.

Karen Smith:
Sure, yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, that's great. So did any of your jobs overlap, you and your husband's work?

Karen Smith:
Believe it or not, only once or twice. Yeah, we were just always going different directions.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow, okay. So what was maybe your favorite gig as a freelance artist or one of your favorites.

Karen Smith:
My very favorite was a concert I got us to play for the Fort Worth Symphony where John Williams was conducting.

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh my goodness. You got to perform under John Williams?

Karen Smith:
Yes, yes, we played a bunch of John Williams music under John Williams conducting and it was just fantastic. I mean Star Wars, ET, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, it was, it was amazing.

Anthony Godfrey:
That is wild. So tell me about the schedule for that performance. When, when did you find out this was going to happen and what was he like?

Karen Smith:
Okay. So I did not get much notice for this one. The reason I got called at all was there was a woman who was a member of that cello section whose mother unfortunately passed away. And so at the last minute they needed a sub. And they called me the day before the first rehearsal. So I got the music a day before the first rehearsal. And then that was two days before the concert. So I think that's right. It might have been one day before the concert also. I believe there were two rehearsals and then the concert. So it was quick.

Anthony Godfrey:
What was it like working with John Williams?

Karen Smith:
John Williams is, oh, he's amazing. He's so warm and supportive and encouraging, and he's just magnificent. Like, I've got nothing bad to say. He's just amazing.

Anthony Godfrey:
Was he trying to accomplish anything different with that performance, or was he trying to evoke what people were expecting from music that they've loved for a long time?

Karen Smith:
I think he was having us play it just the classic best way. So it sounds just like on the soundtracks. And that's what we wanted.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's the way to go. Nobody's going to say, “I wonder how he can change these songs that have such memories associated for me.”

Karen Smith:
Absolutely.

Anthony Godfrey:
You've played with Don Henley, you've played with Tommy Lee, you've played with John Williams. Who are some of the other famous people that you've played with?

Karen Smith:
Let's see, I've played with Stevie Wonder twice. The first time was when I was 18, the 1996 Olympic Games came to Atlanta, which is where I'm from.

Anthony Godfrey:
When you were 18, you played?

Karen Smith:
Yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow.

Karen Smith:
That wasn't for money, that was with my youth orchestra, but it was fantastic. It was televised as part of the closing ceremony to the Olympics. And he sang "Georgia."

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, really?

Karen Smith:
Yeah, that was great.

Anthony Godfrey:
And what else have you, what else did you perform with him?

Karen Smith:
Maybe 10 years ago, he was doing his Songs in the Key of Life Tour, and he came through Dallas when I was living there, and he had a string ensemble play with him. We did "Isn't She Lovely?" and I think "Pastime Paradise."

Anthony Godfrey:
Really? Did you do "Superstition?"

Karen Smith:
We only got to play those two with him. He did a lot of numbers without us.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, I don't know how the cello would fit into that song, but I can't believe he did his Songs in the Key of Life Tour, and I didn't know about it. I did get to see him once, but there was no symphony with him. That's fantastic. Anyone else?

Karen Smith:
Yeah, I played with Dierks Bentley, the country singer. In 2015, the Academy of Country Music Awards was hosted in Dallas, instead of where it usually is in Nashville. And so they needed a few string players to be on television with Dierks Bentley playing a song called "Riser." So that was really fun to see the whole production element and just be in Cowboy Stadium, packed with people. It was really cool.

Anthony Godfrey:
The production element of an award show.

Karen Smith:
Of an award show on live television, yeah.

Anthony Godfrey:
That's incredible. So you have some range. Tommy Lee, country, John Williams.

Karen Smith:
Yeah, cello can really go anywhere, which is super fun.

Anthony Godfrey:
There's always room for cello.

Karen Smith:
Yes, there's always room for cello. I've played with Andrea Bocelli and Yo-Yo Ma.

Anthony Godfrey:
You've played with Yo-Yo Ma?

Karen Smith:
Yeah, on my birthday actually.

Anthony Godfrey:
Who's it like around the campfire? Like, let's jam, let's grab our cellos.

Karen Smith:
Totally. I mean, he would do that.

Anthony Godfrey:
He would do that.

Karen Smtih:
He would do that.

Anthony Godfrey:
When did you play with him?

Karen Smith:
It was with the Fort Worth Symphony. He was playing the Dvorak Cello Concerto, and I was in the cello section just enjoying every moment.

Anthony Godfrey:
How do you focus on playing when he's right there?

Karen Smith:
It's not easy, but also you don't want to mess up in front of him, right?

Anthony Godfrey:
Right. That's true.

Karen Smith:
So you just make it happen.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. Well, nothing will put you in the zone, I guess, than like playing for Yo-Yo Ma or playing with him.

Karen Smith:
Absolutely. It's very inspiring.

Anthony Godfrey:
Wow. That's a storied career. Cool. Who are some of the people, famous people that you've taught math with?

Karen Smith:
That list is unfortunately very short. That's a much shorter list.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay fair enough. I know that you don't perform as much as you used to not nearly as much but you're still performing. What is your next performance?

Anthony Godfrey:
I'll be playing with the Salt Lake Symphonia on Monday, September 14th. We have a concert at the First United Methodist Church in downtown Salt Lake City at 7.30 p.m. We've got some Mendelssohn, some Bach Double Violin Concerto, and a piece by Britain called “The Simple Symphony.” I think it's gonna be great. I'm really excited.

Anthony Godfrey:
So people would just search Salt Lake Symphonia?

Karen Smith:
That's right.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, great. And we'll put a link in the show notes as well so people can grab a ticket if they're interested in coming.

Karen Smith:
Perfect, thanks.

Anthony Godfrey:
Stay with us when we come back. We'll hear performances from Karen Smith and about her journey to becoming a teacher.

Male Voice:
Never miss an episode of The Supercast by liking and subscribing on your favorite podcasting platform. Find transcripts for this episode and others at supercast.jordandistrict.org.

Female Voice:
Looking for a job right now? Looking to work in a fun and supportive environment with great pay and a rewarding career? Jordan School District is hiring. We're currently filling full and part-time positions. You can work and make a difference in young lives and education as a classroom assistant or a substitute teacher. Apply to work in one of our school cafeterias where our lunch staff serves up big smiles with great food every day. We're also looking to hire custodians and bus drivers. In Jordan School District, we like to say, people come for the job and enjoy the adventure. Apply today at employment.jordansdistrict.org.

Anthony Godfrey:
So then you switched to become a teacher. Tell me about how that change came to be.

Karen Smith:
Okay, well, after about 17 years in Dallas, We, my husband had switched into the corporate world at this point and he got the opportunity to move to Utah. They didn't tell us we had to, but we decided we want to. We didn't have any family in Texas. And frankly, I hate the weather there. It's so hot, like March to October, it's hot.

Anthony Godfrey:
It's like furnace blow, hot air in your face, all the time hot.

Karen Smith:
Yes, yes. And I also love mountains. So I was like, well, let's go to Utah. So we came out here to Utah and I was trying to get some freelance work. This was about the time that COVID hit, so that was not great. And I started experiencing what it's like to stay home with my family in the evenings, instead of always running around to a gig and getting home between midnight and two in the morning. And I kind of liked it. So at this point, I should also say, I was experiencing some burnout from just being very busy in Dallas. My children were young, they were about five, seven years old. So I started thinking, “maybe I should teach.” And that idea just sounded better and better by the day. So I eventually enrolled in a program through WGU to get my master's in middle school mathematics education.

Anthony Godfrey:
And you've been teaching here at South Hills for your whole career?

Karen Smith:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
And that's six, seven years?

Karen Smith:
I'm starting year eight.

Anthony Godfrey:
Starting year eight. And you were Educator of the Year for South Hills Middle School last year. So I'd say it's gone pretty well.

(laughing)

Karen Smith:
It's gone all right. I love it here. This is a great place to be.

Anthony Godfrey:
What do you love most about teaching math?

Karen Smith:
Well, where do I start? Teaching math is awesome. I love math, first of all. Like, it's just so fun. The way everything works, it's like a giant puzzle. And trying to get students to see that puzzle is like the most amazing thing. I love it.

Anthony Godfrey:
I think that's a really good description. And I'm sure it's rewarding to see the light bulb go on as middle school students get it on various concepts. like, “oh, I figured it out and I know what to do next.”

Karen Smith:
Absolutely, 100%. And we've changed our curriculum recently. We're doing a different style curriculum where they really kind of dive into problems and try to figure out how the problems work instead of us just showing the steps for how to solve everything. And that light bulb moment happens so much more often now. So I'm loving it.

Anthony Godfrey:
Good, I'm so happy to hear that. Do you ever use the cello or music to cross over? I know there's a relationship, but it might be a little weird to pull the cello out in the middle of math class.

Karen Smith:
Yeah, I mean, I wish I could have an excuse to do that, but I haven't figured out how to make that happen and have it actually be relevant to their math learning.

Anthony Godfrey:
So, tell me if I want to sound really cool with a cellist because my brother-in-law plays cello, what can I throw out there? What can I ask him about his cello or the music he's playing that will make me seem like I really know what's going on?

Karen Smith:
Yeah, you could ask him like, what's his favorite recording of the Elgar Cello Concerto? Do you like the Jackie du Prey or the Sol Gebeta better?

Anthony Godfrey:
Oh, okay. I mean, I'll listen back to that and write it down and rehearse it, and then I'll ask him that.

Karen Smith:
Do that.

Anthony Godfrey:
I want to blow him away. That's going to be fun. What would you say, I mean, you've been teaching, like you said, for seven years now. It's your eighth year. What would you say to those who are considering maybe a career change into teaching later on?

Karen Smith:
I would say it can be it can be really rewarding. It's always interesting. It's never boring. The students make sure of that. It is a lot of work. You're on your feet all day and you come home tired but it is totally worth it.

Anthony Godfrey:
We're going to hear you now play two pieces. Tell us about the first piece that you're going to play.

Karen Smith:
We're gonna hear a little bit of the first movement of the cello concerto by the great French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. This is a piece of romantic written in France in the 1800s and I just think it's super exciting. And I'll be accompanied by Eric Noyes who is the choir director at our school. I hope you love it.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, it lives up to its name. From your description, it is romantic, it does evoke 18^th century France, and I didn’t even have any temptation to check my phone, which should say that I was entranced because this time of day I tend to check my phone about eight times a minute. It was so good and I don't know the technique but the tone of the sound was just beautiful. So thank you for sharing that with us.

Karen Smith:
Thank you.

Anthony Godfrey:
And let's hear one more. What else are you going to play?

Karen Smith:
I'd like to play “Bring Him Home” from Les Mis.

Anthony Godfrey:
Okay, here we go.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thank you for sharing your talents with us today. Thank you for those beautiful performances. Thanks to Eric for accompanying you today, and this has been a real treat.

Karen Smith:
Thank you so much.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, “Education is the most important thing you'll do today!” We'll see you out there.

Brooke:
We do. Some of our most exciting trends are happening in math, well, in math, English language arts and science. So we are element . . .

Anthony Godfrey:
In other words, in every area in which we are tested.

Brooke:
In every subject. We are excited about everything.

Ben:
As we're bringing on more AP subjects and more students taking classes and taking the tests, those pass rates are increasing. That's what we want to see.

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Have you ever wondered what enrollment looks like in Jordan School District? How about where reading scores are headed, or how we're doing on graduation rates? On this episode of the Supercast, we are drilling down on Jordan School District data with our very own experts who simply love crunching the numbers and sifting through statistics. Listen and find out why we have a lot to celebrate, and why hard work done by students, teachers, staff, and parents is paying off.

Anthony Godfrey:
We are talking today with Ben and Brooke about Jordan School District by the numbers. Would you please introduce yourselves and talk a little bit about your role in Jordan School District?

Brooke:
Well, hello. My name is Brooke Anderson. I'm the data scientist for Jordan District. I've been here in Jordan District for over 10 years now. It's been great.

Anthony Godfrey:
Awesome.

Ben:
I'm Ben Jameson. I'm the Director of Assessment Research and Accountability, and I'm excited to be here.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about some of the things that you oversee in the department. What are some of the things that you work with?

Ben:
So I oversee all of the state and federally mandated assessments, as well as surveys between Brooke and I, we work a lot with the data in the District, and help schools with school improvement projects as well.

Anthony Godfrey:
And Brooke, as a data scientist, you do a lot to support the work in our schools. Talk about what your relationship is with Teaching and Learning.

Brooke:
Oh, I love answering questions. So my main relationship is, I hope people will ask me a question. So, you know, we have a lot of initiatives. We have implementations, and there's always questions. Is this going well? Is this effective? So I try to help District leaders answer those questions. Teachers and school leaders have those same questions. They want to know what's happening, what's going to happen, was the thing that we tried working out. So I love meeting with teacher teams and helping them understand what they can do with the data that they have, and what it all means, and whether or not what they're doing is effective. And I will say it's great because almost all the time I get to tell people that their hard work is really paying off, and we all love that.

Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah. And it's great to have the backing of a data scientist telling you, “yeah, this is working.” This is doing what you think it's doing. Or let's adjust it a little bit. Let's see what we can, let's see what we can tweak. Because we don't want just action, we want progress. And that's what we want to talk about today, is, you know, many of the areas that we're focused on in the District and the progress that we're making. But let's start with this. Our demographics are changing, and our enrollment is going down. And this is true of, I think, most, if not every district in the state and really throughout the country. Talk about some of those trends in enrollment in Jordan School District.

Brooke:
It is true of every district in our state. So overall, as a state, we are seeing fewer students coming into the school system over time in these recent years. And then in our district, we've seen about a 2%, a little over 2% drop, between the 2025 school year and the 2026 school year. So we'll see how it turns out for this school year. But that drop is really happening in our kindergarten enrollment. So we have fewer kindergartners coming in, even though our high schools are bigger than they've ever been. We have more students in high school than ever, but we have fewer kindergartners than we've seen in a while.

Anthony Godfrey:
Which translates eventually into fewer high school students than we've seen in a long time, depending on who moves in in the meantime. And, you know, these are trends that we track in a very different way than we used to. When I started many years ago in the District Office, we would drive through neighborhoods and new neighborhoods and say, “oh, we see some basketball standards, some, you know, bikes in the front yard. Looks like there'll be some kids in this neighborhood,” as opposed to the very specific methods that we have for determining just how many students to expect from a particular neighborhood.

Ben:
That's funny. I used to do that, too. When I was in a school, I would drive around the neighborhoods just to get kind of a feel for what's happening, look for new builds, look for younger kids playing in playgrounds and that kind of thing. That actually was kind of fun, even though we certainly have a much more scientific, data-savvy way to do that now.

Anthony Godfrey:
We have access to birth rate data and that sort of thing. And the trend overall, long term, will pick up again. Our enrollment will grow once again, but the economy and other things are impacting that for now. But in the meantime, great things are happening for the students that we have. I want to talk about Acadience reading, and Acadience reading is the way that we measure literacy at the elementary level. So talk to me about—let's talk about students starting elementary and ending elementary heading into middle school. What did those literacy rates look like? And there's a lot to celebrate there.

Brooke:
There is. And I was really pleased to be out at two middle schools just last week talking to them about the literacy rates for their incoming seventh graders and how those students were more prepared than ever to read on-grade level, complex text, because our sixth graders are leaving sixth grade, leaving elementary school with higher literacy rates than we've seen before. Right now, about 83.5 percent of them are reading at the expectation at benchmark.

Anthony Godfrey:
And what that means is students are reading at the level you'd expect them to as they enter seventh grade, in the '80s. Now, we would love that to be 100 percent. We want that to be better. But it's better than it's been for a long time, if not better than ever.

Ben:
Actually, it is. In terms of sixth graders exiting out of the elementary program and into our middle school program, they're at their highest literacy rate ever. And that is exciting. That means, as Brooke said, they're more prepared for seventh grade. But that also is indicative of the growth of our elementary program in terms of literacy instruction. And so that's exciting as well.

Anthony Godfrey:
Talk about what testing looks like in literacy at the elementary level, beginning of year, middle of year, end of year.

Ben:
So we use the Acadience Reading Assessment, which is actually a screener. Its job is to identify whether or not a student is at risk for later literacy issues. And it simply gives us a yes or no. Yes, a student is at benchmark, or no, a student is not at benchmark, and intervention is needed. And we have a team of testers that go around to each of our elementary schools, and they meet with kindergarten through third grade students in a one-on-one setting for anywhere between five to 15 minutes. And they administer various measures that measure things like for sound fluency, or a capacity for students to blend words, or they'll read texts. And then we're looking at word count accuracy over a minute, and that kind of thing. So the assessment is really one-on-one between a tester and a student, and it gives us some good information about where that kid is in terms of their reading ability and what kind of intervention we maybe need to look at to help them improve their reading skills, if that's needed.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thank you for describing just how complex and sophisticated that testing is. Let's talk about kindergarten, 80% at or above benchmark, which is our highest ever. Explain that a little bit.

Brooke:
So our kindergartners obviously have done wonderful things, and our kindergarten teachers have done wonderful things. We've had a really great program at the District level called Planet Kindergarten, where our literacy specialists are bringing our kindergarten teachers in, offering them a lot of support, a lot of professional development, helping them see, okay, here's what we do with students who are coming in, with the wide variety of skills they might need help with, and trying to get to the point at the end of kindergarten where they're well prepared for first grade. Because one of the things we really want to avoid is that kind of summer slide between kindergarten and the beginning of first grade. It's great if we can get students to read by the end of kindergarten. They still have to be doing it when they come back as a first grader.

Anthony Godfrey:
These are kindergartners who are very well prepared, and we want to start where they are and take them to the next planet from Planet Kindergarten. I loved getting to see Planet Kindergarten in action last year. Planet Kindergarten involves very specific goals that students are trying to reach by the beginning of November, letter names and sounds. Now we have goals about the number of words they can read by the end of the year, and it's really exciting. There's no grade level where you get to see more progress, I think, than in kindergarten just from the start of the year till the end, and it's very exciting. And this success, as you said, is really because of family support and our kindergarten teachers diving in and trying some new things and doing really incredible work. Anytime I see our District literacy team, they are dressed in various costumes or t-shirts depicting favorite kids' books. They are on-brand at all times, all in, and that's typical of everyone in our Teaching and Learning department that's helping support our teachers and coaches and administrators out there in our schools.

Brooke:
And I'll also add our secondary literacy team, our secondary literacy team of one, Brandee Bergum, has been doing fantastic work, which is why we see such a gain in ELA proficiency in middle schools. She's got teachers working with the University of Utah Reading Clinic in order to help support students at every reading level in a middle school setting, and we really see those results coming through.

Anthony Godfrey:
Brandee's just done a great job of involving the University of Utah to make sure that all of our secondary reading teachers have the same understanding of literacy instruction and are able to help those students who may have fallen through the cracks catch up and accelerate those who are ready for more. Now, there's a lot of discussion at the state level around literacy, and, you know, that retention is an option in third grade in ways that it hasn't been before. How is that changing the way that we look at literacy in our District?

Brooke:
One of the things we're very focused on is trying to intervene as early as possible, which is why we use the Acadience Reading Screener. What we're looking for is, “how can we resolve any reading difficulties a student demonstrates in kindergarten or first grade?” So by the time we get to third grade, retention based on their reading skills isn't an option. So we really are trying to get students to show growth and show greater proficiency and respond to their interventions.

Anthony Godfrey:
It feels great every year when I get to say that we've had the best kindergarten reading scores we've ever had, and I get to say that year after year.

Anthony Godfrey:
Stay with us when we come back. We discuss graduation rates in Jordan School District and what they mean.

Male Voice:
Never miss an episode of the Supercast by liking and subscribing on your favorite podcasting platform. Find transcripts for this episode and others at supercast.jordandistrict.org.

Female Voice:
They're out on the job in the rain, sleet, snow, ice and in the sunshine. As Jordan School District students navigate their way to and from school every day, we are truly grateful for our city crossing guards, always vigilant and looking out for students to ensure everyone's safety. Because they work so hard protecting our kids, let's give those crossing guards a hand. If you're driving near or around schools, slow down, pay attention, watch for students and staff, and follow instructions from the school crossing guards, and know our cities are always looking to hire crossing guards. If you like kids and need some flexible hours, contact your local city and apply to be a crossing guard today. Together, let's make this a safe and successful school year.

Anthony Godfrey:
Let's talk about RISE scores. Tell me about RISE scores, talk to folks about what that means, and we have a really good upward trend.

Brooke:
We do. Some of our most exciting trends are happening in math, well, in math, English language arts and science. So we are element . . .

Anthony Godfrey:
In other words, in every area in which we are tested.

Brooke:
In every subject. We are excited about everything. I'm really excited to see the work that our science team has done in the elementary school. We've implemented a curriculum that's very hands-on, teaching students to think through the scientific process, to demonstrate what they know.

Anthony Godfrey:
And they've made it competitive in a positive, friendly, fun way. The pony races are really taken off. Kids are eager to make sure that they're learning everything they're supposed to and beyond.

Brooke:
That is our science team in a nutshell, Rachel and Lynn. They are fun.

Anthony Godfrey:
They are a blast.

Brooke:
And they help people be eager to learn. And it really shows in what students have been able to demonstrate about their science thinking skills on the RISE test. We've got the highest science scores in elementary that we've ever seen. And it's been a huge improvement over, you know, five years. We see a five-year increase of 16%, 10% in certain grade levels. It's fantastic.

Ben:
The cool thing, particularly about the RISE science test, is that it's not just your standard multiple-choice test. Kids are actually running experiments, and they're collecting data during the test. And the best assessment is one where students are learning, and they're participating in the learning experience, not just demonstrating knowledge or recalling information. The RISE science is very interactive, and it's very much aligned with science reasoning skills. So they'll go through the scientific process as they take the assessment. So students actually tend to like taking the assessment because it's interactive. It's interesting. I have three boys, all of whom have taken the RISE multiple times, and the science one is their most favorite because it's interactive.

Anthony Godfrey:
I guess that's an occupational hazard that your sons are going to have to be asked what their favorite standardized test was. Not many parents are asking that, so bravo, Ben, for checking in on that. But you're right. It's hands-on. Let me just summarize some of the numbers. Our middle schools are on a four-year upward trend in language arts scores and a six-year upward trend in mathematics scores. Science is also on a six-year upward trend at all grade levels with a 7% point gain. There's an 8% point gain in elementary schools over the last six years on RISE and a 7% point gain in middle schools over the last four years. So a lot of great things happening, a lot of intentionality around our instruction, and teachers, students, and parents are doing an incredible job.

Brooke:
I also have to shout out our math team. I'm looking at our results for seventh grade math, which is such an important year for math. If we want students to succeed through middle school and high school, we know they need a strong foundation in seventh grade math. There's a lot of algebra concepts that are going to be the foundation for everything else. And we see a huge increase over the last five years in the number of students able to be proficient in demonstrating those skills. So great job to our math team and working with our teachers to open up math discourse, to have students dive into that kind of math problem solving in class, and get them thinking more about how to be mathematicians.

Anthony Godfrey:
They've done a lot of heavy lifting, our math specialists, really transforming the way that we teach math, where we start with a little bit of a struggle. Here's a problem. How are you going to solve this? And then it leads the student to that direct instruction, this is how it's done. This is how we get to that answer. And that's very satisfying. And they've done a tremendous job of supporting teachers in looking at problem solving in a different way. And as you said, it's translated into not just better math scores, but mathematical thinking at a deeper level with our students.

Ben:
So I think the cool thing about all three subject areas and the teams that are working to enhance our instruction and the teachers that are working hard as well is the fact that RISE is a rigorous assessment. And the fact that our scores are going up means that our instruction is growing in rigor as well, which means that our students are growing in their capacity to think critically. That's really, that's our vision for our students as they move through Jordan's educational program and graduate with the capacity and the skills to think critically in the world around them.

Anthony Godfrey:
I worry that I've left people out. Let me just say there is enthusiasm, energy, creativity, and intentionality from our teachers at every level, from all of our specialists and consultants in Teaching and Learning. It's just, it's really exciting to see. And we're making progress over the last few years, unlike we've experienced before. And that's a team effort. That's everybody working together. Let's talk about AP exams. When we're looking at AP, we're looking at participation because we want a lot of students to be a part of that and feel prepared for that. And then we're also looking at the outcomes. Are we providing support to students so that they're getting the scores they're hoping for? Talk to me about both aspects of AP testing in Jordan School District.

Brooke:
So students can take an AP class and not necessarily take the test, which obviously isn't the outcome that we want. If you're taking the AP class, we want you to take the test. And so we've done a lot of work, especially Chris Richards-Khong, to make sure that students can access the test. If they need help paying for the test, we can help them do that. We've seen a huge jump in participation, at least 10 percentage points over the last 10 years. So we want, right now we're sitting at about 87 percent of students who take an AP class will go ahead and take the test, which is fantastic. We want that to go even higher, but it's a lot of great progress.

Anthony Godfrey:
Just to cite the statistic here, over the last 12 years, there has been a 93 percent increase in the number of exams being taken by students in Jordan School District. So our efforts to provide that next level of instruction and achievement is working, and that's counselors and teachers and administrators all working together and parents supporting that. Talk to me about the pass rate overall for middle schools and high schools, Ben.

Ben:
The pass rate for middle schools has increased 12 percentage points over the last four years, which is pretty exciting. Normally you would expect as participation rates increase, there's at least the chance that pass rates will decrease, but that's not the case. We're seeing both increase. For high schools, the pass rate has increased nine percentage points over the last four years. So as we're bringing on more AP subjects and more students taking classes and taking the test, those pass rates are increasing. That's what we want to see.

Anthony Godfrey:
All right. Now let's talk about the granddaddy of them all, the graduation rate. That has been looking great for a while now.

Brooke:
Yes. So we've been able to get a percentage point kind of added to our graduation rate pretty steadily over the last 12 years, which is fantastic. If we look from our 2025 rate, which is our last official rate, we're still working on finalizing our 2026 rate. Our last official rate in 2025 was 91.8. And if we look back to 2015, it was 85.3. So that's a really steep increase over time. And it's contributed to by our middle schools, our high schools. It's a lot of work to get more kids over that finish line.

Anthony Godfrey:
And we talked about those kindergarten reading scores. That's where graduation rates start, is helping make sure that students have a wonderful foundation in kindergarten. Now, talk about what that graduation rate really means, because the dropout rate is different based on the way that we're required to report that. There's this impression that 8 percent of our students are dropping out, and that's not the case.

Brooke:
So our dropout rate is based on the fact that once a student hits ninth grade, we are responsible for their graduation outcome. Until they enroll somewhere else, we need to know what happened to that student. And so a lot of the students who are in our dropout rate didn't actually drop out. One, they might have gone to a different place and just not told anybody, so we can't find them. They're an unknown. They might have transferred to adult ed, and that would count against our graduation rate as well. They might have withdrawn, or they might have a pending graduation, where they said, “you know, I didn't graduate on time, but I'm really trying by October,” and maybe they do it, and maybe they don't. So there are different kinds of flavors of dropout, and students who say, “I'm dropping out of school, I'm not doing this anymore,” we have actually lowered that rate down to about half a percent. That's a couple dozen kids. So we want that to be even lower than that. We don't want any student deciding, “I'm done with school, I'm going to drop out, I'm not finishing.” But we have managed to lower that down to a very, very low level.

Anthony Godfrey:
And it requires a little CSI work sometimes, a little detective work when someone registers for one quarter in ninth grade, and then they move to Virginia, and we don't know exactly where to transfer them to. They're counted as a dropout just because they've moved, and we haven't been able to transfer that. Sometimes it's just a matter of tracking the records properly and entering things correctly. So when you say that we're still calculating the 2026 graduation rate, that's because we're sifting through that data to be sure that it's accurate. It's very encouraging to see so many students graduating, and for graduation to mean more and more because of the increased rigor and the increased opportunities that are available to students. Well, thank you for all of the work that you do to help us improve our practice, to know where we stand, and to know what we need to do next. So I really appreciate all your support, and thank you for having so much good news to share.

Ben:
It was a pleasure. Thanks for having us.

Brooke:
I always love sharing good news.

Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, “Education is the most important thing you'll do today!” We'll see you out there.