Ahead of the pack: Disadvantaged students excel at Wallenpaupack, test scores say

By LIAM MAYO
Posted 1/16/25

WALLENPAUPACK AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT, PA — Disadvantaged students who attend Wallenpaupack area schools have consistently higher educational outcomes than their peers at other Pennsylvania …

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Ahead of the pack: Disadvantaged students excel at Wallenpaupack, test scores say

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WALLENPAUPACK AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT, PA — Disadvantaged students who attend Wallenpaupack area schools have consistently higher educational outcomes than their peers at other Pennsylvania schools.

During the 2023-24 school year, both economically disadvantaged students and special education students at Wallenpaupack had test scores above the 60th percentile compared to other economically disadvantaged and special education students respectively.

“As you look at our students relative to other students in similar circumstances, our students are performing in the top third,” said Dr. Clayton LaCoe III, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment with Wallenpaupack, speaking at a January 13 school board meeting.

Wallenpaupack’s Hispanic students also performed consistently higher than their peers, with scores above the 65th percentile, meaning they had scores higher than 65 percent of the statewide student body. While the test scores of white students at Wallenpaupack lagged a step behind, they did have scores consistently within the top half of students in the state.

In accessing broader trends, the school had “good news” to show for all of its students,” LaCoe said.

“Generally speaking, from 2018 to 2024, those percentile values are trending up,” LaCoe said, referring to the scores earned by the whole of the Wallenpaupack student body.

For instance, students performed better than 41% of their peers in English and 52% in math in 2018; now, six years later, those numbers are up to 52% and 60%, respectively. The school’s science scores have gone up and down over the years, and have stayed around the 60th percentile mark.

Superintendent Keith Gunuskey said the district is “very fortunate that we have the amount of data that is available, far more than we have ever had before.”

Demographic details

Comparing test cores against those of other students statewide is simple, in theory.

Less simple? Determining the demographic groups to use for that comparison.

Take “economically disadvantaged” students. In 2013, 52% of Wallenpaupack students were identified as ‘economically disadvantaged’. By 2023-24, that number had risen to 59%.

Diane Szader, director of educational technology with Wallenpaupack, said the way Wallenpaupack arrived at that number changed between 2013 and 2023.

In 2013, a student had to fill out state paperwork to get a free or reduced-price lunch; in 2024, all students receive free or reduced-price lunches. That change means there’s less urgency for students to fill out that paperwork—but it also causes problems for the district’s counting of economically disadvantaged students.

Wallenpaupack began distributing modified, simplified paperwork to try and get an accurate read on its economically disadvantaged student body, Szader said. She added the school also uses such measures as food pantry numbers, Medicare data and homelessness figures to get an accurate accounting.

However, even with the school’s best efforts, “I do believe [that cohort] is probably under-reported,” she said.

The school faces a different set of complications as it tries to compile ethnicity data.

The Wallenpaupack student body is about 12% Hispanic, according to the school’s current accounting. However, that figure may be impacted by how the school is collecting demographic information.

The current government-required form first asks if a student is Hispanic or not Hispanic. If yes, it asks no follow-up questions. Only if a student is not Hispanic does it ask for more detailed demographic info.

The Biden administration proposed a change, which would come into effect in the 2025-26 school year, that would ask all students to provide more detailed demographic information. Currently, it is unclear whether that rule will come into effect, Szader said.

However, if it does, “it is going to definitely shift some of our demographics, because we have students who are Hispanic now who maybe, by the time we’re looking at all of these changes, may become multiracial,” she said.

Wallenpaupack Area School District, education, test scores, disadvantaged students

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