Making the grade: Vestavia Hills students still score high, but math scores decline from 2022

Students in Vestavia Hills City Schools continue to perform at one of the highest levels in the state, though math scores dropped on spring 2023 assessments.

Vestavia Hills students in the spring of 2023 ranked second in the state in English, math and science scores, behind only Mountain Brook students, according to data from the Alabama Department of Education.

We have additional resources to help students that are not proficient or need additional support in the skills outside of what they’re getting in the classroom.

Jason Bostic

About 83% of Vestavia Hills students were deemed proficient in English, compared to 87% in Mountain Brook, 78% in Saraland and 77% in Homewood.

In math, 68% of Vestavia Hills students were deemed proficient, compared to 79% in Mountain Brook, 63% in Homewood and 62% in Cullman. In science, about 79% of Vestavia Hills students were deemed proficient, compared to 83% in Mountain Brook, 71% in Homewood and 68% in Trussville.

“I think our kids perform very well, and I think our teachers do an excellent job of preparing them,” Superintendent Todd Freeman said.

“We don’t focus on a test, but the test is an indication of how our kids perform and what they have learned during the school year. It’s a good piece of information for us.”

Given that the vast majority of Vestavia Hills students go on to college, “we feel like we’re getting them prepared well and ready to go when they graduate,” Freeman said. “We’re always looking for room to grow, and test scores always give us ideas of areas where we can strengthen ourselves. We would like to strengthen our math and science. That being said, we still do really well in those areas. That’s just a place we feel like we can grow.”

How Are Vestavia Hills Students Testing?

Vestavia Hills Test Score Proficiency By Graduating Class

These charts show how the same general group of students performed over the past three spring test cycles. It includes students from all Vestavia Hills elementary schools.

Districtwide, English proficiency scores have stayed the same (83%) the past three years, data shows. Science proficiency rates grew from 77% in 2021 to 79% in both 2022 and 2023. Math proficiency rates grew from 63% in 2021 to 72% in 2022, but rates then fell to 68% in 2023.

Jason Bostic, Vestavia Hills’ district assessment coordinator, said it’s important to note that the 2021 tests were taken near the end of a year in which many students were still learning partially or completely virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A lot of students were still trying to get back into normal routines, and educators across the state were concerned about whether students were learning as effectively with virtual instruction.

The spring of 2021 also was the first time the state’s students were taking the Alabama Comprehensive Assessment Program tests.

The ACAP tests are only one tool that teachers use to assess their students’ progress, but Bostic said perhaps the biggest takeaway from looking at recent years’ test scores in Vestavia Hills is that math is an area where school leaders want to focus.

The percentage of Vestavia Hills elementary students (grades 3-8) deemed proficient in math varies from 61% at Vestavia Hills Elementary Cahaba Heights to 80% at Vestavia Hills Elementary Liberty Park.

All of Vestavia Hills’ elementary schools have increased proficiency rates since 2021, but four of the five elementary schools saw a slight decline in proficiency from 2022 to 2023. Only Vestavia Hills Elementary Dolly Ridge saw math scores increase from 2022 to 2023.

At the middle school level, about 68% of Pizitz Middle School students were proficient in math, which was up from 63% in 2021 but down from 73% in 2022. About 55% of students at Liberty Park Middle School were deemed proficient in math in the spring of 2023, down from 59% in 2022 and 58% in 2021.

At the high school level, proficiency rates are based on 11th graders’ performance on the ACT college entrance exam. At Vestavia Hills High School, 69% of the 11th graders were deemed proficient in math in the spring of 2023, down from 75% in 2022 and 71% in 2021.

In English, three of the five Vestavia Hills elementary schools showed improvement in test scores in the spring of 2023, while middle and high school students showed just slight declines in English.

In science, four Vestavia Hills elementary schools showed declines from 2022 to 2023, but all were still higher than in 2021. Students at both middle schools and the high school showed declines in science proficiency, but the decline at Pizitz Middle School was less than 1 percentage point.

Bostic said Vestavia Hills school officials find it valuable to track the progress of the same group of students as they move from one grade to the next.

There are some encouraging signs. About 79% of the district’s second graders in the spring of 2021 were proficient in English, and that increased to 84% when they were in the third grade the next year and 87% when they were in the fourth grade in the spring of 2023, Bostic said. Those are, for the most part, the current class of fifth graders, though some students have come or gone as they moved to another area or school.

However, that same group of students saw their math proficiency scores decline from 81% in the spring of 2021 and 2022 to 68% this past spring, Bostic said.

This year’s sixth graders saw their English proficiency scores rise from 84% in 2021 to 90% in 2022 and 92% in 2023, while their math scores dropped from 71% in 2021 to 68% in 2022, but then rose to 74% in 2023.

Using test scores

So how do teachers and school officials use test score data? Bostic said all the schools have professional learning team times built into their school day to look at student work and identify students who may need intervention or content areas that need more focus in the classroom.

In the elementary schools, teachers from the same grade level meet together, and in the secondary schools, teachers break into groups based on their respective content areas, he said.

Students also take benchmark assessments three times a year — at the beginning, mid-point and end of the year — and any students who fall in the bottom 25% are screened to see if they need additional support, Bostic said.

“We have additional resources to help students that are not proficient or need additional support in the skills outside of what they’re getting in the classroom,” he said.

Teachers also take time to review state curriculum standards and make sure those standards are being taught, Bostic said. That was especially important the past couple of years because the state standards have been updated in reading and math, he said.

Brooke Wedgworth, a curriculum and instruction director for the school system, said it’s an ongoing process to see if the district’s strategies are working or not.

Sometimes, the strategies may be specific to a particular grade level at a certain school, and other times they may be implemented across the district, depending on the need, she said.

About five years ago, district officials saw a need to focus on phonics instruction. They started in kindergarten and each year added another grade level, providing extra professional development for teachers.

“We definitely saw improvement because of that,” Wedgworth said. However, they’re still seeing some results in that area of test score data that they don’t want to see, she said.

Teachers also have been focusing in the past couple of years on making sure they use the same terminology and academic vocabulary that is used on the ACAP test, Wedgworth said. For example, students may know how to do the math but, if different terminology is used in the test instructions, may not understand what exactly they are being asked to do, she said. The answer may be as simple as using a different word, she said.

Also, some grade levels, after reviewing test score data, have been working to improve students’ vocabulary, which is part of the reading assessment, Wedgworth said. The district focused on vocabulary for K-5 students during a professional development day for teachers in October, she said. Another professional development session focused on math, especially problem-solving, she said.

District leaders believe the teachers do a great job, but they can continue to learn and improve to help maximize student understanding and performance, she said.

The school district is putting a heavy emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math instruction, Wedgworth said.

“We know our kids need it, and we know that’s what a whole lot of our students are going into careerwise,” she said.

While Vestavia Hills school officials do check to see how their students are doing compared to students in other school districts, the focus is primarily on Vestavia Hills students themselves, Bostic said. “We’re focusing on our kids and our district and making sure we’re meeting their academic needs.”

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Top Test Scores in Alabama

Proficiency in English

1. Mountain Brook: 86.7%

2. Vestavia Hills: 83.4%

3. Saraland: 78.2%

4. Homewood: 77%

5. Cullman: 75.6%

6. Trussville: 75.4%

7. Madison: 74.6%

8. Hoover: 73.4%

9. Hartselle: 71.7%

10. Arab: 71.1%

Proficiency in Math

1. Mountain Brook: 78.6%

2. Vestavia Hills: 68.1%

3. Homewood: 62.9%

4. Cullman: 62.3%

5. Saraland: 61.8%

6. Orange Beach: 60.8%

7. Arab: 60.5%

8. Hoover: 59.4%

9. Muscle Shoals: 58.9%

10. Trussville: 58.7%

Proficiency in Science

1. Mountain Brook: 82.6%

2. Vestavia Hills: 78.6%

3. Homewood: 71.3%

4. Trussville: 67.9%

5. Cullman: 66.4%

6. Hartselle: 65.5%

7. Saraland: 64.2%

8. Oneonta: 63%

9. Madison: 61.6%

10. Hoover: 61%

SOURCE: Alabama Department of Education