The Guthrie Center School Board discussed at their last meeting the drop in winter testing scores from their younger elementary school students.

Superintendent Dennis McClain says they are playing catch with students that missed critical grade levels for learning like kindergarten and first grade due to the pandemic. McClain tells Raccoon Valley Radio about the impacts. 

“Really, those primary kids missed a lot of that foundational instruction, and so they’re the ones who are struggling the most and that we’re focusing most on getting caught up. And that’s not just, I mean, that’s what we’re seeing across the state and across the nation.”

He explains that even though they missed out on time in the classroom they’re still seeing progress. 

“They’re still learning, but they’re growing, but they’re just not scoring where they would have if they had that previous year and a quarter of instruction. They’re just not at that spot yet because we’re working on getting them caught up.”

McClain says overtime he expects the younger students to catch up and score better.