Test scores from last spring show Iowa students made some improvement overall in math proficiency but there was little change in reading.
The Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress samples the grade-level achievement of students in 3rd through 11th grade.
After falling during the pandemic, the share of students performing at grade-level in math either matched or exceeded 2019 levels in most grades.
Statewide reading proficiency for 2023 was mostly about even with last year, although in 9th grade and above there has been a downward trend overall.
The Iowa Department of Education also releases district and school specific data on student proficiency.
During Monday night’s Sioux City School Board meeting, board President Dan Greenwell apologized to fellow board member Monique Scarlett. Greenwell had earlier accused her of taking part in a coordinated effort to report Chad Krastel to the FBI for domestic terrorism after he protested at board meetings in 2020.
At the board meeting, Chad Krastel claimed former superintendent Paul Gausman, former board member Perla Alarcon-Flory, Scarlett, Mayor Bob Scott and Sioux City Police Chief Rex Mueller, “colluded” to report him to the FBI in late 2020, according to The Sioux City Journal.
Krastel objected to the school district's handling of an incident in which his 4-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted by another child at an afters chool program.
However, an internal Sioux City Police Department investigation showed no one at SCPD ever reported Krastel to the FBI.
The city of Sioux City's Community Inclusion liason, Semehar Ghebrekidan called for Greenwell to resign over the incident. Ghebrekidan charged that Greenwell had “created a divisive and hostile atmosphere within our school board meetings.”
Ghebrekidan,and Native American activist Trisha Rivers both spoke out against Greenwell at Monday's board meeting. They aksed why the board president failed to further investigate Krastel's claims before making his public comments.
Rivers is running for one of the four open seats on the board in November.
