Local schools have made slight gains in attendance but remain far below state averages in most measures of school success. A wealth of data released last week by the Oregon Department of Education provides a detailed look at how local schools are doing. The annual “report cards” give families and the community a way to compare school performance and demographics. They include results from state standardized tests which were first released earlier this year. The numbers showed just one in four third graders in Salem-Keizer schools were reading at grade level. That number fell during the pandemic and has continued to decline. Local schools contend with high poverty rates among students, declining enrollment and an increasingly multilingual student body, the numbers show. The data looks at the last school year. Parents can look up their student’s school here. Here’s a breakdown of what the report cards had to say for Salem-Keizer. Read Salem Reporter’s previous coverage of school standardized test scores here and on the new attendance data here. Science teacher Steven DeYoung takes attendance during advisory period on the first day for sixth graders at Houck Middle School on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023. (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) Attendance remains far lower than pre-pandemic Just over half of the 37,850 students in the Salem-Keizer School District attended school regularly last year. The figure counts students who come to class at least 90% of the time. The other students are considered “chronically absent.” While there was a slight increase in regular attendance from the year before, Salem remains well below the state average. Across Oregon, two in three students attended class regularly last school year. Significantly more students were showing up for elementary school Some of Salem’s most challenged schools made large improvements in the share of students regularly coming to class. Eight elementary schools improved by at least 10 percentage points: Brush College, Four Corners, Candalaria, Scott, Weddle, Englewood, Miller and Eyre. Two schools stand out in particular. Four Corners stands at 62%, compared to 47% the year before, and Scott is at 53%, compared to 39% the year before. Attendance rates improved at every district elementary school except Keizer, while high school attendance rates generally declined slightly or held flat.  All told, about 570 more students were in class regularly last school year compared to the year before. A third grade class waits in line to enter the school library on the first day of school at Wright Elementary on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024. (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) More Salem students live in low-income families This year’s report cards for the first time included more accurate counts of the share of students living in poverty across the district. The state numbers show about 4 out of 10 Salem students in that category compared to about 3 out of 10 statewide. For years, schools have measured poverty based on how many students qualify for free lunch at school, a determination based on family income.  But many Oregon schools have started providing all students with free lunch and breakfast, regardless of income. The Salem-Keizer School District began universal meals in 2022, and provided them at most schools for years before going districtwide. That resulted in every student at many schools being classified as impoverished. The more precise measure shows poverty rates vary from a high of 69% at Hallman and Highland elementary schools to a low of 19% at Sumpter.  Middle schools range from a high of 55% low-income students at Parrish and Waldo middle schools to a low of 25% at Straub. For high schools, North has the largest share of low-income students, 49%, and West has the lowest at 21%. The district’s charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately run, have among the lowest poverty rates in the district. Principal Amy Coyle shows the fully-stocked food pantry at Wright Elementary ready for the new school year on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024. The pantry was started two years ago by the school’s community outreach coordinator, a position Wright no longer has. (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) Enrollment continues to fall as district demographics shift Local schools last year had 650 fewer students — the equivalent of losing about two elementary schools of pupils.  Enrollment, which stood at 37,850, has been steadily declining since peaking in 2019 at 41,770 students. That trend is true for public schools across Oregon as many parents shifted to homeschooling or private schools during the pandemic. Enrollment affects how much money the district gets from the state, which allocates funding based on student count. It also shows the extent to which the pandemic flipped enrollment trends, even as Salem’s population is growing. Pre-pandemic, district forecasts predicted enrollment would grow to more than 44,000 students by 2028. The report card also shows the school district has become more racially diverse. Latino students make up a growing share of the student body, while the number of white students continues to decline. Five years ago, white students were the largest racial group in Salem-Keizer, at 47% of students. They’re now 39%. In 2019, 41% of students were Latino. Now, it’s 47%. The number of languages spoken by district students has increased significantly, from 90 in 2019 to 130 in 2024. That shift has come as more refugees have settled in Salem and “newcomer” programs for students who recently arrived in the U.S. have expanded. McKay High School students eat lunch on Tuesday, Oct. 15. (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) Learning English remains a challenge Many non-native speakers of English continue to struggle with the language, according to the latest report card. Despite district efforts to improve, the latest data shows the number of students on track to English fluency has remained stagnant over the past three years. In elementary school, only about half of students learning English are on track to be proficient. In middle school, about one in four students are on track, and in high school, just 18% are. A growing share of refugee and immigrant students have influenced those numbers, district officials say. That’s among the reasons the number of students learning English in high school has increased from about 1,400 students in 2022 to over 1,700 this year. Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241. A MOMENT MORE, PLEASE– If you found this story useful, consider subscribing to Salem Reporter if you don’t already. Work such as this, done by local professionals, depends on community support from subscribers. Please take a moment and sign up now – easy and secure: SUBSCRIBE. The post 5 takeaways: what new report cards reveal about Salem-Keizer schools appeared first on Salem Reporter.