Test scores show Sumner Elementary School is making progress with its 45/15 calendar.

Austin’s Director of Research Evaluation and Assessment Corey Haugen dissected some of the Multiple Measurement Rating test results for the Austin Public Schools Board Monday evening at its study session in the district conference room. He summarized test results he previously shared with the calendar committee, a group of about 50 community members that has researched the schools’ yearly calendar and start times that could help student achievement. On Jan. 12, 2015, the group is set to recommend the Austin Public Schools board that the district and the community continue researching possible calendar options.

Though that committee is a long ways from recommending changes like a district-wide 45/15, Haugen said the data shows that Sumner’s MMR scores have been better since they enacted the 45/15 calendar. He noted though that there are multiple variables at Sumner, not just the calendar.

“Based on the information we looked at last night, there is evidence that there’s academic achievement gains at Sumner after the onset of the 45/15 at Sumner,” Haugen said.

The results put Sumner at 65.18 percent for MMR scores, which ranked the school 410 out of 842 Minnesotan elementary schools, or at 51 percent in the state, which Haugen said is good.

“So knowing what the research says about nonwhite socioeconomic students, academic achievement should be lower, but we’re not seeing that same phenomenon because their academic achievement — their MMR ratings— is putting them up here at Celebration status, and they’re ranked better than half the elementary schools in the state,” Haugen said.

Sumner is Austin’s most diverse school. The district has a higher percentage of nonwhite students — about 40.9 percent — compared to the state average of 28.5 percent, and Sumner has the highest percentage in the district at 71.1 percent. At Sumner, 81.3 percent of students are on free and reduced lunch. The school also has the highest number of English as a second language students, according to Haugen.

“Sumner was most demographically diverse in terms of ethnicity, had the most EL in terms of percentage and the most free and reduced by percentage, and we know that puts kids at a disadvantage,” Haugen said. “And yet they were able to pull out scores much better than other elementaries across the Big Nine, so that’s a pretty significant gain in terms of the work that they’re doing out there.”

The district decided to pursue a 45/15 calendar for Sumner in 2011 after the school had difficulties keeping pace with the old Adequate Yearly Progress benchmarks under the federally mandated No Child Left Behind laws. At the time, district officials claimed the new calendar would help students as a traditional calendar is based upon agricultural growing seasons: students would have the summer off to help on the farm.

Few students help on the farm nowadays, but many students in Austin face food difficulties.

Districtwide, about 57.3 percent of students are on free and reduced lunch, compared to the state which is at 38.5 percent.

“That’s a big difference between us and the rest of the state,” Haugen said.

Superintendent David Krenz was happy that the data showed the school was closing the achievement gap.

“That’s the intent. It’s not just to do something different,” Krenz said about the 45/15 calendar. “The research that group of staff and that community did or said is that there is an effect with smaller summer breaks, or smaller breaks period, to that summer loss, regression if you want the term that they used. And I think we’ve seen that.”

He added, “I think that gap and the closure of that gap, has been the critical component to what Sumner’s been able to achieve.”

Yet the calendar isn’t the only variable. Sumner has the district’s highest number of nonwhite and free and reduced lunch students. The district also piloted the reading program there, so those students had a head start on that program.

“That’s why reading is so important, because the kids are hearing those words, making a connection to those words, and it becomes knowledge that they have,” Krenz said. “Current learning, and you build on that current learning.”

The 45/15 calendar reduces the length of summer break, so students don’t lose what they’ve learned over the summer. The district also holds interventions during the breaks to help students retain their knowledge, and Krenz said that’s been a key component to Sumner’s success, as well.

“I think that’s the advantage too, you can address student’s slippage or the areas that they’re behind rather than having to wait a whole summer,” he said.

One of the problems when looking at the data is the state’s test regulations, which change every five or so years. When the state changes the standards, there is usually a downfall in test scores.