Fortunately, it’s early enough in the school year that students in the Northern Lehigh School District have plenty of room for growth.

At last week’s school board meeting, building principals gave a snapshot of data that was collected in the first half of September at each building level.

“Keeping in mind that students were assessed on everything that they will be instructed on for the entire school year,” Superintendent Dr. Matthew J. Link said. “So it’s a snapshot of their performance on the entire school year’s content, even the content that they were not yet instructed in.”

After hearing from several building principals, Director Gale Husack expressed some concerns with IXL, a personalized digital learning platform.

“Are we allowing IXL to teach the students what they need to do because that’s the tool we’re using versus teaching in multiple facets to multiple people who learn differently just because we want (a data point), and that’s my fear of IXL,” Husack said. “I think it’s great, you have to have something to do that, but looking at these numbers, I’m not overly joyed to say ‘hey congratulations, we’re on the right path.’”

Northern Lehigh Middle School Principal David Hauser explained this was an assessments measure.

“This is a measurement of where we stand now, and then from this, IXL will generate for the teachers on a classroom basis, for administration on a grade-level basis, or even on a school basis, what focus points need to be hit more,” Hauser said. “So without this information, what we would lack is the information to make informed decisions about where our time is best spent.”

Northern Lehigh High School Principal Dr. Lori Bali told the board she’s “very glad this is a Sept. 5 snapshot and not a Jan. 5 snapshot.”

Bali discussed the not pinpointed students, and said that in math, 264 students currently do not have a math class right now.

She said they have about 186 students who are taking a math course, and noted “our data there is not good at all.”

Bali said they have one student above grade level, six on grade level, 23 below grade level, and “a huge pile of kids far below grade level, so we have a lot of work to do, which we know.”

She noted the high school hasn’t been using IXL for as long as the middle school, however; last year it was utilized, although not in a consistent fashion.

Bali said as for ELA, the high school has 117 students far below, 26 below, 17 on grade level, and a little bit higher there above grade level.

She said in Biology, exactly 25% percent of the students are proficient already at the beginning of the year, which was a little more promising.

Husack again expressed some reservations.

“We’ve put a lot of emphasis and a lot of money into these programs, and I still hear us saying ‘I do this’, ‘my team does this’, ‘I do this’,” Husack said. “I’d like to hear us start saying ‘we are doing this’, because right now, I don’t believe to your point that we’re rowing in the same direction, and we’re not helping ourselves get to that.

“So, I would ask the administration team to make sure that we continue to utilize the support of those that are going to the conferences and those that are planning to start hearing that shift of mindset to get us through the comprehensive plan where we’re trying to grow, that it starts in kindergarten and goes through 12th grade. We’ve got to start making those changes, and we have to start changing our own verbiage; to get us to do that, we got to start now, otherwise, we’re never going to get there.

“So, I ask you guys to really start thinking differently to make some changes.”

Link said the school board will revisit this particular data in February.