School test scores improve in St. Paul, but still lag below pre-pandemic levels

[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: Around Minnesota right now skies are partly mostly cloudy, high temps today will be around 70 in the North, near 80 and the South. At noon in Brainerd, it's sunny and 68, it's 72 at the Duluth Harbor, and outside the Minnesota Marine, Art Museum, and Winona, it's sunny and 79. I'm Cathy Wurzer with Minnesota news headlines.

Several Minnesota homes and businesses remain without power today in the wake of weekend storms that brought torrential rain, hail, and a few tornadoes to the state. Xcel Energy is reporting more than 500 customers without power in its Minnesota service area mostly in the Twin Cities. That's down from more than 27,000 in the immediate wake of Saturday night's storms.

Those storms produced several tornado touchdowns in the South and East metro area. The tornadoes were rated EF0, with winds up to 85 miles an hour. Those tornadoes downed trees that cause some building damage. Weather spotters also reported a tornado last night in Kandiyohi County. No immediate reports of any damage from that storm.

Police in Cannon Falls are asking for the public's help after an apparent abduction over the weekend. Tim Nelson has more.

TIM NELSON: Officers were called to a gas station in Cannon Falls after a woman there reported she'd been abducted. The woman told officers she got into a car in downtown Minneapolis for a ride early Saturday morning. The driver instead refused to let her out and drove around the Twin Cities before heading to Cannon Falls.

The suspect fled when police arrived and was later spotted by police in Northfield and Faribault. Police pursued the vehicle but were unable to stop it. They later found the driver with the help of bystanders.

Authorities are trying to retrace the route of the vehicle. They report, the woman said she had shouted for help while she was near a lake or river early Saturday morning possibly within a 15 minute drive of Maple Grove. Anyone who recalls hearing a woman call for help and seeing a dark-colored car speeding away around sunrise Saturday is asked to contact Cannon Falls Police. I'm Tim Nelson.

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CATHY WURZER: School started today for some Minnesota students as kids go back to class. Their standardized test scores from last year are coming in, and the news is not good. The State Education Department says most Minnesota students are not proficient in math, just over half are proficient in reading. It's yet another sign of the pandemic's lasting impacts on education.

The State Department of Education has identified 371 schools, including 15 entire school districts, for training and support over the next three years, based on their results from standardized tests, graduation rates, and attendance. Saint Paul Public Schools have about two dozen schools on the list of those needing support. That's an improvement for Saint Paul Schools. Stacy Gracia is the chief of equity, strategy, and innovation for the Saint Paul Public Schools. She's on the line. Nice to have you on Minnesota Now.

STACY GRACIA: Hi. Thank you for having me. Good to be here.

CATHY WURZER: Welcome.

STACY GRACIA: Thank you.

CATHY WURZER: The bad news is, you have 24 schools needing help, but the number was higher. What happened at the schools that were removed from the list?

STACY GRACIA: Well, we had 11 schools removed from the list at various designations. A lot of intentional comprehensive planning, I think, if you speak with principals, they will say a variety of things. Some principals will say it was an intentional support in the classroom in, like tier 1 core instruction, some would say that it was organizational planning around the job embedded professional development time, many would say it was the support of what we call a learning lead, which is our school improvement model of a strategy expert supporting instructional improvement across the building.

CATHY WURZER: So it's like there was a lot going on. Let me ask you about, just generally speaking now, the pandemic clearly was hard on all students. And at the Saint Paul Schools, and, of course, other schools are still struggling despite improvements. I understand only 35% of students are proficient in reading in the district only, about a quarter are proficient in math, was that the struggle before the pandemic?

STACY GRACIA: Oh, yes. Absolutely. The pandemic just really exacerbated the challenges that we were having. We had actually had some larger percentages of students proficient in math as recently as 17, 18, 16, 17, and it had slowly declined, but we saw a large, large decline after the pandemic.

And in reading, we had also had larger percentages of students proficient. We were actually hoping that right prior to the pandemic, we were on an upward trend. We had been a little bit stable but was hoping that we could get some traction. But that said, we are-- I'm happy that we have some increases, we're not back to pre-pandemic levels by any means, means but we're happy that we're seeing some increases.

CATHY WURZER: Help out listeners here. Given what we see here in some of these test scores, can this loss in learning be made up over time?

STACY GRACIA: Well, I think that's the question that educators are asking themselves across the nation right now. There are different patterns within the interrupted learning time. Some schools, they had more in-person time across the nation than others. And, of course, we had schools that were having challenges prior to the pandemic.

So I think the short answer is, we're not sure. We will certainly do our best. And with the influx of the resources from the American Rescue Plan, it's definitely supporting our ability to do more to address the unfinished learning. We may see impact on that unfinished learning, particularly for students that had more challenges during the pandemic.

And by more challenges, I mean students that we're beginning school, so younger students that were starting kindergarten or students that were starting sixth grade or starting ninth grade, that those make it or make it years where they learn a lot in terms of school as well as how to do school. Also students that were receiving special education services tended to struggle quite a bit during the pandemic and in distance learning and students that are learning English as second languages. So we will certainly do everything and more to address.

CATHY WURZER: And I bet you have to throw into the mix mental health impacts. That has to be a factor here.

STACY GRACIA: Absolutely. And for some of our communities, it's compounding mental health challenges, and it is just compounding other challenges, intersections of challenges. And so, yes, absolutely.

CATHY WURZER: When you look at the statewide data, there are glaring gaps between white students and students of color, and, of course, that's been the case, oh, my goodness, for a very long time in Minnesota. And the pandemic has not helped close that gap. So what do you see as a path forward?

STACY GRACIA: So I think a path forward is all hands on deck community citywide. intersection agreement to support learning for each and every student. The racial inequities, learning achievement inequities, they're systemic to any of our institutions and all of our institutions. So I think the move forward is really addressing them, naming them, meeting the challenges head on courageously and consistently. And as persistently as those challenges have been, meet them with an equal level of persistence and all the way.

And together acknowledging all of our communities, all of our ethnicities, and all of our differences, but coming together where it really makes a difference, which is for the betterment of our children.

CATHY WURZER: I wish I had more time. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time this afternoon.

STACY GRACIA: Thank you for having me.

CATHY WURZER: Absolutely. Stacey Gracia is the chief of equity, strategy, and innovation for Saint Paul Public Schools.