Superintendent Joe briefed the Lewisburg Area School District board on a national Education Recovery Scorecard (an analysis by Harvard and Stanford researchers) and clarified how a recent local newspaper article may have overstated or misinterpreted the district’s performance.

Joe said the report compares district testing trends from 2003 to 2024 and highlights changes since the 2019 pre-pandemic baseline. He told the board a local headline — "data shows that high school testing below grade level" — could be misinterpreted because the report compares current scores to 2019 levels rather than asserting districts are below expected grade level. Joe said Lewisburg’s 2024 results remain well above the national average: he cited the district as about 2.38 grade levels above the national average in math and 2.44 grade levels above the national average in reading.

Joe said that while the district’s scores fell from high points in earlier years and have not fully returned to the 2017–2019 peak, the change does not mean the district’s students are below grade level. He said he sent a letter to the Daily Item’s editor to request correction and context, and he urged caution in interpreting the report’s maps and axis scales.

Board members thanked the superintendent for the clarification and noted the presentation shows the district is above the national average while recognizing there is work to do to regain earlier peaks.

The superintendent’s remarks were informational; no formal action was taken.