MCA results: Attendance drives success in school, testing

Districtwide, Cloquet saw a 3 percent increase in Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments scores in the 2023-24 school year.

Superintendent Michael Cary was happy to see the numbers mostly improving, four and a half years after the pandemic shut down Minnesota schools, but only three since students were faced with at least partial online classes.

"As we move further past the pandemic, we appear to be seeing the impacts slowly diminish," Cary said. "The turnaround has been slower in our upper grade levels, which makes sense since these students were all school age during the pandemic. These students all saw major disruptions to their time in classrooms as a result."

At Cloquet High School, reading jumped almost 10 points from last year to 56 percent of students meeting standards, while math students meeting standards went up by nearly four points and science scores by five points.

The graduation rate in 2023 - the most recent year listed - was 92.1 percent. That's 10 percentage points above the state average, principal Steve Battaglia said.

He highlighted the American Indian student graduation rate at CHS, which was 93.8 percent, versus a state average of 61 percent for that demographic.

"I don't know if there's another school in the state with a higher rate of American Indian graduates than white students," he said, crediting teachers, the Indian Ed program and the community as a whole. "We're really bucking the trend here."

In the elementary schools (preK-4), MCA scores are higher, Cary said, noting that many of those students weren't in school during the pandemic.

Reading at Churchill Elementary jumped over eight points last year, from 59.1 to 67.5 percent meeting standards. Math scores increased from 67.1 percent to 68.5 percent.

"We saw some nice gains," said Churchill principal David Wangen. "We're always very proud of our students and staff for their hard work and effort."

But younger kids have their own issues.

"We have noticed an increase in speech supports for our younger elementary students," Cary said. "We had anticipated this may occur as many of these students were in their critical years of speech development while [facial] masking was in effect."

Attendance matters

The number of CHS school students achieving consistent attendance was also six points higher in 2023-24, but still only sits at 61 percent. A student is considered consistently attending if they attend more than 90 percent of the time the student is enrolled during the year. According to Battaglia, that means 39 percent of students missed 10 days or more: those are unexcused absences or sick days without a doctor's note.

"Absenteeism is one of our biggest issues," Battaglia said. He shared that the district studied the link between absenteeism and students' grades after the first semester last year.

"For every F, on average, that kid missed that class 23 times," he said. "If they got an F both semesters, that's an average of 46 missed classes.

"We're really good at teaching kids in school - it's the kids that are not in school that struggle."

He believes mental health often plays a role. Battaglia also said he's seen a "different mentality" from a lot of kids after the pandemic.

"They were home for a year, then came back part time, and some of them have just not made the transition," he said.

Classes missed for extracurricular school activities are not included in the "consistent attendance" statistics, Battaglia said.

Cary said many super-involved kids can have a higher rate of excused absences, but their grades often don't suffer.

"It really comes down to how engaged a student is in their education or with their school," he said.

Cloquet Middle School reported the highest rate of consistent attendance, at 95.9 percent for grades 5-8. The rate at Washington was 82.5 percent and 82.4 percent at Churchill.

Alternative education

The Cloquet Area Alternative Education Program (CAAEP) saw a huge jump in the graduation rate, from 59.1 percent in 2022 to 82.2 percent in 2023.

Located on the upper floors of the Garfield School in Cloquet, CAAEP draws students from 12 different school districts in the region, most of them are struggling and behind on credits. Many need a more supportive and/or flexible school environment to help them catch up.

Superintendent Cary explained that CAAEP has always had a good five- and six-year graduation rate, but the school has been "working diligently" to improve its four-year graduation rate, the only one the state of Minnesota monitors and compares. The school offers a wide range of credit recovery options and smaller class sizes.

The number of students working at or above grade level was far lower at CAAEP, which covers mostly grades 9-12, along with a single classroom of middle school students. According to the Minnesota Report Card, only a handful of CAAEP students actually took the MCAs.

The number of CAAEP students with consistent attendance came in at 17.1 percent the most recent school year.

Test scores not everything

Superintendent Cary also stressed that MCA scores are just one tool for assessment. The district tries to look at a more holistic picture, he said.

"While we take these test results seriously, they serve as a look at student performance at one single point in time," Cary said. "We have a number of data points we keep on our students' progress throughout their years and use a broader view of their performance and growth in our schools."

Battaglia pointed out that students can opt out of taking MCAs and many do. The state counts every student that opts out as a failure for the school district.

"We have a ton of kids that opt out, many of them smart ones," he said. "Some have test anxiety, others might have PSEO and just don't want the hassle."

With that many unearned failures, he wondered how accurate the state's numbers really are.

MCA scores across Carlton County

School Math Reading Science

Barnum elementary 54.9 59.9 65.1

Barnum secondary 39 57.9 44.9

Carlton elementary 42.9 39.3 31.8

Carlton secondary 21.3 37.8 22.9

Cloquet high school 37.2 56 41.6

Cloquet middle school 37.8 51.5 29.9

Cloquet elementary (Churchill) 68.5 67.5 N/A*

Cloquet elementary (Washington) 56.7 54.3 N/A*

Cloquet Area Alternative Education Program 4.2 25 13.3 **

Cromwell-Wright elementary 61 58.5 42.9

Cromwell-Wright secondary 29.0 39.4 27.8

Esko elementary 75.2 68 57.9

Esko secondary 54.6 64 52.5

Moose Lake elementary 42.9 50.0 65.7

Moose Lake secondary 48.8 55.1 37.3

Wrenshall elementary 54.3 48.4 35.0

Wrenshall secondary 20.9 41.9 54.5

Statewide all students 45.5 49.9 39.6

*Cloquet elementary schools are preK through grade 4 so there are no science scores. Science testing starts in grade 5. Cloquet Middle School serves grades 5-8.

** The Cloquet Area Alternative Education Program draws students from 12 different school districts in the region, most of them are struggling and behind on credits. Very few students took the MCAs at CAAEP in recent years.