In Reading, the district has caught up to the state’s average growth once, in 2008 when on average between 70 and 71 percent of students district- and state-wide met AYP goals. Since that time, the district’s reading scores have decreased, showing a marked lack of growth as the goals have gotten higher, as 65 percent of students district-wide made AYP Reading goals this year, compared to 72 percent. Science testing, which was introduced in 2008, hasn’t gone favorably for the district in total, as scores have jumped up and back down for the district between 2008 and 2010, whereas the state average has steadily increased over the past couple years.

The district is hoping to combat sagging test results through a variety of ways, from what Krenz calls identifying individual student’s educational ailments and curing them like a doctor, which Krenz believes can only come from coming up with more individualized learning and finding better ways to engage the kids who learn in the district.

“We need to go from the mass production model, the old factory model,” Krenz said. “We have to reach 100 percent of our kids to make sure they’re all at their grade level or above.”

They’ve already started work on implementing a new math system. Last year, the district took a look at the K-12 math curriculum they were using, changing elementary math lessons over to Math Expressions, a fairly new system of learning which utilizes more ways of teaching math to students.

“It seemed to have a fair amount of rigor to it,” Alberts said. According to Alberts, the district looked to find a new curriculum system which would balance homework with more math processes, or more exercises that would ask students why certain math equations work the way they do. Although it’s only been in the district for a month, the Math Expressions program is doing just that, according to district principals and teachers.

“Many of the fifth grade concepts are algebra-based that I remember doing in high school,” said Eric Kossoris, who teaches fifth grade students at Sumner.