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Two of Hamilton County’s lowest-performing schools showed strong math gains amid pandemic

Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / Rebecca Millott, right, Opportunity Zone Data Analyst, goes over school performance while Valoria Armstrong, Partnership Network Advisory Board Chair, listens. The Partnership Network Advisory Board met at Dalewood Middle School on March 10, 2020. Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / Rebecca Millott, right, Opportunity Zone Data Analyst, goes over school performance while Valoria Armstrong, Partnership Network Advisory Board Chair, listens. The Partnership Network Advisory Board met at Dalewood Middle School on March 10, 2020.

By Anika Chaturvedi November 2, 2021 3 min read

Orchard Knob and Woodmore elementaries, two of Hamilton County Schools’ historically low-performing schools, showed progress on their students’ math proficiency in a year when most schools in the county lost ground due to instructional interruptions created by COVID-19.

Math proficiency at Orchard Knob Elementary increased by 3.7 percentage points on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program tests, going from 6.7% of students scoring proficient in 2018-19 to 10.4% in 2020-21.

Meanwhile, the number of students scoring proficient in math grew at Woodmore Elementary by 8.4 percentage points, going from 11.6% to 20% in the same time period.

Woodmore also showed increased proficiency in English, going from 12.4% in 2018-19 to 19.6% in 2020-21 , while Orchard Knob Elementary saw a decline in English proficiency from 4.3% in 2018-19 to 3.5% in 2020-21.

Woodmore was able to exit Tennessee’s priority list, made up of schools performing in the bottom 5% of the state.