In Jordan School District tracking everything from literacy and math scores to senior graduation rates, rising enrollment, and more is essential to the work we do. Tracking shows us trends so we can improve and celebrate student success.
On this episode of the Supercast, we sit down with the dedicated team responsible for research, evaluation, and sorting out Jordan School District by the numbers.
Audio Transcription
[Music]Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. In Jordan School District, tracking data on everything from literacy and math scores to student graduation rates, rising enrollment, and more is essential to the work we do. Following the data shows us trends so we can improve and celebrate student success.
On this episode of the Supercast, we sit down with the dedicated team responsible for research, evaluation, and sorting out Jordan School District by the numbers.
We're talking today with the Department of Evaluation, Research, and Accountability here in Jordan School District to talk about Jordan by the numbers. Thanks for joining us. Introduce yourselves and let's talk Jordan by the numbers.
Ben Jameson:
Awesome, well, I'm Ben Jameson. I get to be the department's director and it's a pleasure to be with you today.
Brooke Anderson:
Hi, my name is Brooke Anderson. I'm the data scientist working for Jordan District and working with Ben, and it's very exciting to be here.
Anthony Godfrey:
The newly appointed data scientist. It's very exciting to have you in that role.
Brooke Anderson:
This is my first day as a data scientist at Jordan District.
Anthony Godfrey:
Well, I'm glad we can memorialize it through the podcast here. Let's just start off with talking a little bit about what your roles are. Your role is brand new, Brooke, so you get to make it whatever you want it to be. But Ben, let's start with you.
Ben Jameson:
So I supervise quite a few assessments that are state and federally mandated as well as a few district-mandated assessments. And then we're responsible for disseminating that data and making sure that people understand what it is and know how to make data-driven decisions based on that data.
Anthony Godfrey:
And many of those assessments, as you indicated, really are not district-required assessments. Those come from the state or the federal level. A vast majority of them, in fact.
Ben Jameson:
Yeah, the vast majority actually come from the state. We've got a couple from the federal government as well. Yep.
Anthony Godfrey:
And Brooke, tell us about what you have been doing in the department and about your new role as a data scientist because that may be a term that many are not familiar with.
Brooke Anderson:
Well, I've been working as a teacher specialist in evaluation research and accountability and in that role, I was cleaning and analyzing all of this assessment data and trying to combine it with all of the other data available that we have about students to ask and answer bigger and better questions about student learning. That's really the goal. The role of a data scientist specifically works on asking questions that are important to the organization and in combining data from multiple sources to make sense of it. To make sure that we can get all the data from the different information systems that we use. Turn it into usable data and analytics that can lead to knowledge that can lead to action. So a data scientist is all about making it easier to make decisions.
Anthony Godfrey:
And to make data-driven decisions.
Brooke Anderson:
Right.
Anthony Godfrey:
So it's really exciting to talk with you both about this. If you've ever watched Shark Tank, the panel of entrepreneurs on Shark Tank always say know your numbers. And they throw that out at the questions about what are their sales and what of all this. So those who listen to the podcast after this will know their numbers when it comes to Jordan School District.
Brooke Anderson:
That's right.
Anthony Godfrey:
So let's start off before we talk about the changes in Jordan which I do want to talk about, let's just talk about where we are, how large we are, the makeup of our population, our student population, that sort of thing.
Brooke Anderson:
Fantastic. We are a large school district. Currently we've we've got about 57,829 students enrolled and we are probably going to have about that same or a little bit more this year enrolled. Normally we take enrollment counts as of October 1. So school districts in the state wait until October 1 to get their official count of students enrolled in their school district.
Anthony Godfrey:
School funding has changed a little bit. That October 1 count used to be where all of our funding came from. That’s been updated- daily membership is part of that.
Brooke Anderson:
To an average daily membership. Yes, that's right.
Anthony Godfrey:
But October 1 remains that date where we say, "Okay, everybody's pretty much registered for the school year. We're underway. People who are going to drop off of the rolls have dropped off. So now we pretty much have a solid number."
Brooke Anderson:
That's correct.
Anthony Godfrey:
It's interesting though, Jordan School District is the fourth-largest school district in Utah and even more interesting, the 70th largest district in the nation. Now do you guys know how many there are? So we're number 70, how many school districts are there roughly in the nation?
Brooke Anderson:
Over 13,000.
Anthony Godfrey:
Somebody asked me that the other day and I tried to look that up so I'm glad to have the right number from you. And how many districts are there in the country overall?
Brooke Anderson:
Over 13,000.
Anthony Godfrey:
So over 13,000 we're 70th in terms of enrollment, fourth in the state. I know that Granite, Alpine, and Davis are ahead of us I'm not sure in what order. We are growing but we're growing at a slower rate than we're accustomed to. Birth rates have dropped and not as many people are moving in. How recently was it that we really had big growth?
Brooke Anderson:
I'd say our largest period of growth was about five years ago, pre-pandemic for sure.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, that's my recollection as well that it really did taper off. It's interesting, all districts are experiencing that and really it's being experienced across the country. It's an interesting phenomenon.
Brooke Anderson:
It is. It's especially interesting, you know, thinking of where we were ten years ago and looking at our enrollment comparison to Granite, who is our next-door neighbor. And at this trajectory, we're going to maybe surpass Granite in enrollment within the next couple of years because their enrollment is dropping so steeply.
Brooke Anderson:
Let’s talk about schools. Talk about the number of schools we have at each level and the type of schools that we have.
Brooke Anderson:
So we have 68 individual schools. 40 of those are traditional elementary schools and we've got one online elementary school. We have 12 traditional middle schools, one online, six traditional high schools, one alternative high school, and one online high school. And we have a special needs school for students in K-12. We also have a special needs school for adult students. We have two career and technical academies and we also have a preschool which we run for students with special needs before they enter kindergarten.
Anthony Godfrey:
A wide range of services.
Brooke Anderson:
Exactly.
Anthony Godfrey:
Lots of different schools throughout a growing area. So with all of that talk to me about the changes that we've experienced as a district over the years. It's really quite interesting to look at those trends.
Brooke Anderson:
One of the major trends we've had is that we're becoming diversified. So if you looked at our enrollment 10 years ago We would have had only about 20% of students who would be considered a racial or ethnic minority. And now we're almost 30%. So that's quite a big change over the course of 10 years. And it's a wonderful change because that means that more diversity is being included in our schools. And of course, we've got an increasing amount of diversity in our staff as well. It's not quite to the level of where our students are, but it is increasing.
Anthony Godfrey:
Not only have we grown as a district, but our enrollment has changed and it's shifted.
Brooke Anderson:
Right, it's much more concentrated toward the south part of the valley. We all know that area has built up so much in such a short time. And of course, there are fewer students in the north side of our district. So the needs of where we need to put students in school buildings have shifted pretty dramatically.
Anthony Godfrey:
It's interesting to watch. When I first worked in Jordan's school district, I applied as a teacher. I was excited about Jordan because I knew that it was a growing district. So I thought that would mean more and more opportunities. I worked out at a school that no longer exists, being a middle school out in Copperton, that was torn down due to any number of reasons. New schools were built. And I was always told, "Hey, out here in Copperton, you see all these fields and you can't see where the next house is from Copperton, but all those houses are going to fill in all the way to Copperton eventually.' And there's been a lot of progress in that direction. A lot fewer fields and a lot more homes and that's what we're finding on the west, westernmost edge of our district and in the southwest area as well.
Brooke Anderson:
Copperton is still our only rural part of the district that would be considered rural.
Anthony Godfrey:
Okay.
Brooke Anderson:
But maybe not for long.
Anthony Godfrey:
Not for long, not for long. I lived out in Copperton, I loved Copperton, it's a great spot.
Stay with us when we come back, we dive into growing graduation rates and district enrollment.
Break:
Hello, I'm Tracy Miller, President of the Jordan School District Board of Education. There are seven members on the Board of Education, one in each voting district. We are committed to listening and serving our constituents as we work together to provide the best possible learning environment for the students we serve. As members of the Jordan Board of Education, we believe it is our duty and responsibility to: increase student achievement; provide parents with the choices they deserve and desire; recognize and reward quality in educators; empower school leaders through policy governance and professional development; and communicate with the public, legislators, business leaders, cities, and parents. We invite you to get to know the Board member who represents you in your voting district and to please join us at our monthly board meeting held on the fourth Tuesday of every month. Or listen from the comfort of your home, on our live stream. For more information and to find your Board member, visit jordandistrict.org. With parent and community input and support, we will continue our work to give students every opportunity to succeed in Jordan District schools and beyond. Thank you for your support. We look forward to seeing you soon.
Anthony Godfrey:
Tell us a little bit about maybe some surprising facts about Jordan District that people might not be aware of. What makes Jordan unique?
Brooke Anderson:
Oh, I would like to talk about some of the things that have changed with our enrollment and bringing in new students. Did you know that we have 82 different birth countries represented, students from 82 different countries attend Jordan District?
Anthony Godfrey:
I knew we had a lot. I could not have told you the number 82. That's really remarkable. That's amazing.
Brooke Anderson:
The students in Jordan District speak 58 different languages. We're getting about 8% of our students are learning English. They're in the process of learning English. And then some of them, of course, already know English, but we have 58 languages represented among our students as well.
Anthony Godfrey:
And tell everyone some of the most predominant languages spoken.
Brooke Anderson:
Of course, the most predominant languages, English, then Spanish, then Portuguese, then Arabic is number four, Vietnamese, Chinese, Tongan, Samoan, Russian, and Mongolian.
Anthony Godfrey:
Fascinating. We really do have a broad range of students from a lot of different backgrounds and that's exciting.
Brooke Anderson:
It is.
Anthony Godfrey:
Let's talk about student achievement. Let's discuss some of the areas where Jordan has been doing particularly well and is on an upward trend and some areas where we really have been working on trying to improve.
Ben Jameson:
So I think maybe the best place to start is right at the beginning with early literacy in our early grades. We put forth a great deal of effort to help our students read on grade level by third grade and I'm excited with some of the numbers that have come out most recently. Just for instance, 71.7% of kindergartners are reading on grade level at the end of last year. That's the highest that it's ever been in Jordan School District. Even by third grade, which was that time where students transitioned between learning to read to reading to learn, 71.3% of our third graders are also reading on grade level, meeting literacy benchmarks at the end of third grade. So we're super excited about that.
We're seeing actually quite a bit of growth across grade levels. For instance, 65% of students in grades K through 3 made typical or better growth, which is the highest that it's ever been in the school district. Kindergarten students, again, not only did they have the highest proficiency, but they had the highest growth rate that they've ever had at nearly 59% of students making typical or better growth. 66% of second grade students made typical or better growth, which again is the highest that it's ever been. I keep saying that because it feels so good to say.
Anthony Godfrey:
It does feel good to say that. And we're doing things we haven't done before. We have the Walk to Read program that we rolled out a couple of years ago. We had piloted it a year before that. And teachers have worked very hard-- coaches, administrators, folks from teaching and learning, parents, students. Everyone's been working really hard to get those results.
I'm particularly excited about the boosting scores for kindergarten students. So they're getting a better start in Jordan District than they ever have before. And a great predictor of graduation rates is the percentage of students reading on grade level in third grade. And a great predictor of that is how well students are doing in kindergarten. So I think we're gonna continue to see the positive impact of the students learning to read at an earlier age and with greater proficiency.
And I also wanna point out, a year's growth and the typical or better growth is harder to achieve than you might think because you may have students who are very advanced coming into a class and that statistic reflects their growth as well. It's just not, are you reading on grade level or on the expected level for your age and grade level? It's that you've made growth wherever you started, whether you started with a very low reading ability or very high scores, it's that you grew for the entire year and you made that progress that we would expect and teachers are working really, really hard to make sure that happens.
Ben Jameson:
It really is a celebration for everyone involved, all of our stakeholders. And it's exciting to report that we're making such progress.
Anthony Godfrey:
Talk about graduation rates.
Ben Jameson:
90.2% of students in the graduating class of 2022 were able to graduate, which is the highest in Jordan School District that it's ever been. And that's super exciting for us to report as well. Having talked about growth in early literacy, this kind of bookends the hard work that's going on at the other end of the educational spectrum.
Anthony Godfrey:
It's really exciting to have the highest graduation rates we've ever had. It's wonderful and we're going to keep working on that trajectory. Coming out of a pandemic, it's really important that that number continues to grow.
I think what's important as well is the work that has been done to be sure that that graduation is even more meaningful than it's ever been. That the experiences that lead to that graduation are rich learning experiences. And again, our teachers have worked so hard to create great classroom environments, great learning environments for our students. So that not only are more students graduating than ever before, but they're having a better experience in learning more than ever before.
Brooke Anderson:
And we can also see that students are being offered more options for the courses they can take in high school, particularly advanced college and career readiness courses. We can see that the number of students taking CTE courses, for example, has increased. It's the highest it's ever been in 2022 and 2023 to about 19% to 20%. We love seeing that and that's up from about 16% in 2015 so we like getting more students into those kind of classes.
Anthony Godfrey:
A variety of experience is really important. It's something we focused on and we want to prepare students for a lot of different things after high school whether it's career, whether it's college, whether it's technical training. So we're not solely focused on college where we have many programs that lead directly to careers or to licensing programs or to other post-secondary educational opportunities. So really the nice thing about having so many students in so many schools is we have a critical mass of people that are interested, that are going to be interested in a wide variety of programs so it allows us to offer more and more of those specialized courses.
Brooke Anderson:
One of my favorite tasks every year is being able to update a master course catalog with all the new courses that have been added.
Anthony Godfrey:
Right.
Brooke Anderson:
We've been able to add things like the history of Disney in America, Everyday Chemistry all of those fun courses that I look at that and I think I wish I could take that course.
Anthony Godfrey:
Yeah, absolutely. There's a Rock-and-Roll course that I would really like to sit in on. These are meaningful courses focused around skills and dispositions that we want students to have as they as they graduate. We're working right now on the Portrait of a Graduate process under the Board's direction. And we're getting community input, employee input, student input on what skills do we want students to have, what knowledge, what dispositions when they graduate from Jordan School District. And having that input and really putting that plan in place is an exciting process too. So I think we're going to continue to make progress along these same lines.
Brooke Anderson:
We've certainly made progress in the amount of students taking advanced courses. We have 34% of our students in grades 9 through 12 taking AP, Concurrent Enrollment, Secondary Math 3, very advanced math, all of those kind of college preparation courses, which is great to see.
Anthony Godfrey:
Which speaks to the preparation that leads up to students being ready for those courses, but also that we have educators encouraging students to take more challenging courses and really inspiring students and helping them understand their own capabilities and seeing beyond what maybe they thought they were capable of. Let's talk about some of the areas where we know that improvement is needed. And we've been working hard, but we're maybe shifting our focus and trying some new things to see if we can impact those scores in a positive way.
Ben Jameson:
So RISE is the summative assessment that is mandated by the state that we administer to students in grades three through eight in language, arts, math, and science. And so we've been monitoring those scores, particularly through the height of the pandemic and keeping a watch on those scores and how they've been affected by, you know, the various impacts that the pandemic brought along. We did see a drop during the pandemic in all three content areas. We are starting to see a bounce back in the content areas, especially in the elementary grade levels. But we definitely need to still continue to work and keep an eye on our performance, especially at the secondary levels in language arts, math, and science. I think that is something that we are focusing on with teachers even on a daily basis. They're working hard to help students recover some of the learning gaps that came about because of all the things that happened during the pandemic.
Anthony Godfrey:
Right. And there's so much, you know, we've talked about the pandemic so much, of course, over the last few years and the impact that it's had on learning. And some folks may be tired of hearing that. And we don't want to have a deficit mentality where we're always focused on where we're falling short. But we also have to be realistic about the negative impact that this had on students.
If you think about how much you changed from, say, sixth grade to eighth grade, or second grade to fourth grade, or ninth grade to being a junior in high school, those two years were not normal years. And so the development and the academic achievement wasn't where it normally would have been. And so we didn't get the interactions with each other and the school setting and all of that in the same way that students normally benefit from.
So we're still going to be playing catch-up on that, but we've really focused on looking forward and celebrating success and building on the successes that we have. And I really think that we're going to continue to see this upward trend as teachers and students and families have really worked hard to overcome those setbacks. We've talked about where we've come, where we are. Let's talk about where we're headed.
Brooke Anderson:
So Jordan District in the next five years we've reached kind of a plateau in our student enrollment and we expect that plateau to continue as demographics may shift a little bit, enrollment may shift in different parts of the district, but really we're expecting to see things to stay pretty stable for the next few years.
Anthony Godfrey:
And we've seen explosive growth for a long time so it's a different adjustment, but like you said it's a shift also in where those students are moving.
Brooke Anderson:
Exactly.
Anthony Godfrey:
Also, let’s talk a little bit about Tableau- what Tableau is, how we're using it, and how it allows us to make those data-driven decisions in the district.
Ben Jameson:
So Tableau is a data visualization program that all of our school administrators and many of our district administrators, coaches, counselors have access to that allows them to both see data and even interact with it so that they can adjust filters to see for instance, how are my students with disabilities doing in this particular subject area? Or what's the reading level of my students that are learning English as a second language? It's exciting because they're able to ask questions about the data, and then interact with the data to be able to get the answers that they need to make decisions they need to make and create plans that will help students achieve at even higher levels. We're very excited about the ways that we can use Tableau and we'll get to use Tableau even more now that we have a data scientist.
Brooke Anderson:
We've been getting more and more questions about student learning which is exciting because you never know what's the next question that we can answer that would help us move forward.
Anthony Godfrey:
The data is really important because at the end of a teaching day, or even as a parent, it's difficult to know am I having the impact that I hope I'm having? And this data allows us to see that yes, teachers are having a great impact on students. They're learning more than ever and they have better opportunities than ever before.
Brooke Anderson:
That's true.
Anthony Godfrey:
Well, thank you very much for spending the time with us today, but also thank you for all the hard work you're doing to make sure that we have the best information we can to make the best decisions we can.
Brooke Anderson:
Thank you.
Ben Jameson:
Thank you. We appreciate the invite.
Anthony Godfrey:
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Education is the most important thing you will do today. We'll see you out there.