The Panther Valley School District faces numerous challenges with growing enrollment, high numbers of economically disadvantaged students and increased student mobility, its supervisor of curriculum, student and community services said.

On Wednesday, Robert Palazzo presented an overview of the district’s latest comprehensive plan, which provides a synopsis of its current conditions and goals for the future.

“I really wanted to illustrate what is going on in the district because it is very unique compared to other districts,” he told board members and other administrators.

Current enrollment stands at 1,860 students with 64 prekindergarten slots, Palazzo said, and the district’s poverty percentage stands at 29.37%, Palazzo said.

That number is higher than 94.8% of the districts in the state of Pennsylvania, he said. Other Carbon County districts have poverty rates between 12.6% and 15.3%, according to 2023 census data.

The district also saw the numbers of economically disadvantaged students increase by 27.3% since 2019-2020, Palazzo said. The district had 83.7% of its students listed as economically disadvantaged in 2023, he said.

“Our elementary school has the highest rate,” Palazzo said. “That rate is greater than 89% of all schools in the state. That’s like 2,300 or something schools, including Philadelphia.”

The district has also seen an increase in the number of students in special education and English-language learners, or ELL, he said. Palazzo believes the number of ELL, which has doubled in three years, is underrepresented.

Students moving

The Panther Valley School District also has a lot of student mobility, or number of students coming in and out of the district, and the numbers continue to trend up, he said.

The average daily membership, or number of students enrolled for 60 days for more, has increased 14.6% from 2019-20 to 2023-24. The increase in 2019-20 was 11.6%, and 5.1% in 2023-24, which are both rolling three-year averages, he said.

“Those rates were the third highest in the state and the 26th highest in the state by percentage,” Palazzo said. “In the last three years, Jim Thorpe had a negative 7% decrease in average daily membership, where we had a 5.1% increase.”

Due to the increased mobility, the district started looking at the students enrolled from kindergarten through 12th grade to see how they are performing relative to their peers, he said.

Only 43% of Panther Valley’s senior class has been enrolled since kindergarten, and only 31% of students in grades seven to 12 have been enrolled since kindergarten, he said.

“Out of the top 25 students due to graduate this coming year, 72% have been in the district since kindergarten,” Palazzo said, which demonstrates the link between stability and performance.

Director Michael Alabovitz said that means that the district’s problem areas stem from a transient population, rather than those who have remained here. Palazzo agreed.

“When we look at our senior class, about 30% of them have come in the past two or three years … which poses a huge issue with our graduation rate,” Palazzo said.

Mobility also plays a role in the state assessments, looking at the numbers from eighth graders to when they were in third grade, he said.

“Only 48% of the third grade students still remained with us in eighth grade,” Palazzo said. “When we look at the proficient students in third grade ... 40% of that proficient or advanced group withdrew and went elsewhere.”

Illustrating both growth and mobility in the district, Palazzo said that this month alone the district has seen 24 students enroll.

Last year, the district lost 10% of its average daily membership after the last day of school with 204 students withdrawing, and saw another 149 enroll by first day of school, Palazzo said.

“The mobility rate is a huge, huge impact to the district, and it’s incredibly unique,” he said.

Some good news is in the intermediate Future Ready Index, which is higher than 80% of the schools that had a comparable economic disadvantage, Palazzo said.

“So, we’re outperforming the majority of schools in the state at our intermediate school,” he said.

The district, though, needs to work on bring up its Future Ready Index score at the junior-senior high school, which is 54.8, Palazzo said.

Graduation rate

Graduation rate is a huge factor here with students coming in, and they only have four years to graduate once they hit ninth grade, he said.

“We’re really going to need to pinpoint what kids need to graduate within their time frame to get our graduation rate up,” he said.

The district’s strengths, Palazzo said, include growth in intermediate math and junior-senior science — both of which exceed statewide standards. Panther Valley is also seeing additional growth in English Language Arts (ELA) and math snapshots, he said.

Goals in the new three-year comprehensive plan include increases in ELA and math proficiency, as well as increase in regular attendance, Palazzo said.

Attendance

“Regular attendance is a big one,” he said. “Regular attendance is any child that misses 19 or more days of school does not have regular attendance, even if all 19 are excused.”

If a child is sick and misses 19 days, that counts against the school, Palazzo said, because that is now how the state calculates regular attendance.

One of the ways to reach these goals is a multitiered approach to provide students with the support they need to succeed, and implementing an early warning system to employ supports, he said.

A color-coded data management and early warning system will provide a snapshot of how an individual student is doing, and identifies those that are at most risk, Palazzo explained.

A student with nine days absent, for instance, is halfway to 18 and a warning can go to different staff members to touch base with the parents on attendance, or email a teacher if a student’s reading grade is failing to get supports in place, such reading specialists or paraprofessionals to help the student, he said.

The ultimate goal is to decrease barriers for the district’s students and increase their proficiency, Palazzo said.

The comprehensive plan, which the board approved on Wednesday night, will be posted on the district’s website for public review for 28 days, Palazzo said. It’ll then go into effect through the end of 2028.