School district compares report cards

Many Custer School District school board members and administrators expressed frustration at being unfavorably compared with neighboring district, Hill City at the Nov. 13 school board meeting.
With the arrival of the district’s official report card from the South Dakota Department of Education (SDDOE), the board had the opportunity to see how the district truly stacks up against others in the state. In many categories, the district outperformed its neighboring districts as well as the state averages. In other categories, the district remained competitive.
In the Nov. 13 meeting, curriculum director Nora Smolnisky compiled the results of the district’s report card into graphs and presented them with comparisons to neighboring districts and the state averages.
SDDOE compared the data in different categories, measuring attendance, graduation rates, and college and career readiness for the district as well as student performance in three subject areas at the district level and for each school. The scores are based on state assesments, which are meant to measure student performance in English language arts (ELA) and math in grades 3-8 and 11 and science in grades five, eight and 11. For all those students across the state, the average scores were 50 percent in  ELA, 43 percent in math and 43 percent in science. Custer scored above those averages in each subject: 53 percent for ELA, 45 percent for math and 51 percent for science.
District-wide, the attendance rate sits at 91 percent, which is higher than those in Hill City and Hot Springs, which are at 89 percent and 83 percent, respectively. The state average is 86 percent.
For high school completion, the district also outperforms its neighbors. Custer has a 97 percent completion rate whereas Hill City has 91 percent and Hot Springs has 84 percent. The state average is 91 percent, with 84 percent completing high school on time in four years.
For college and career readiness, the district also scored (61 percent), still above Hot Springs (39 percent) and the state average (54 percent), but trailing behind Hill City (68 percent).
“We are competitive with them. That’s what I think the takeaway is from all of these graphs—I think we’re held up against Hill City like they are so much better than us, and I don’t see that in the numbers. I see that we are very competitive,” said Smolnisky.
“That is the stigma,” said board member Jeff Prior.
As a school, Custer elementary scored quite well, outranking neighboring elementary schools in overall score and state average scores in each subject. The school did especially well in math, earning a score of 60 percent, outperforming the state average of 43 percent and the Hill City’s  and Hot Springs’s scores of 42 percent by quite a margin. Superintendent Mark Naugle called the score “outstanding.” In other subjects, the elementary was more or less on par with state averages. The overall score for the school also considers factors like school safety, school environment and educator qualifications.
Hermosa Elementary scored slightly behind Custer Elementary overall, but outperformed Custer in science by one point on average.
For its overall score, Custer’s junior high also outranked Hill City and Hot Springs by a margin of one point. For ELA scores, the school was right on the state average, slightly below (6 percent) in math and 10 percent higher than the state average for science.
The high school also was competitive with neighboring schools. Overall, its score was 80, compared with 81 for Hill City High School and 70 for Hot Springs High School. For ELA, Custer’s score matched Hill City’s and was better than Hot Springs while its math scores were slightly better than both and its science scores slightly worse than both. Math was the only subject in which the school did not exceed state averages.
“I believe we’re making progress, and we’re making progress against ourselves, which is where it matters,” said Naugle.