Mt. Lebanon school achievement trending upward
Assistant superintendents Ronald Davis and Marybeth Irvin said that the Mt. Lebanon School District is exceeding state measures of school success and beating national averages for college entrance and Advanced Placement exam scores.
According to the Future Ready PA Index – which recently replaced Pennsylvania’s old public school academic standards – a majority of Mt. Lebanon schools not only surpassed 2018 goals for English language arts, math and science proficiency, but are meeting statewide goals for 2030.
The administrators presented the findings of their assessment of district success for the 2017-18 school year during the Mt. Lebanon School Board’s regular meeting Nov. 19.
“I commend every principal here,” Board President Michael Riemer said in response.
“The work that’s been done, what I’ve seen here and the way that’s been explained is nothing less than stellar in my opinion.”
The report found that participation among Mt. Lebanon High School students in the ACT exam is increasing somewhat while SAT exam participation has declined since 2009. More students, however, are still taking the latter over the former.
Roughly 96 percent of seniors declared they would be attending college after graduating, a figure that has more or less remained steady since 2010. According to the report, 277 students took the ACT during the 2017-18 school year, averaging a composite score of 25.9 compared to state and national average scores of 23.5 and 20.8, respectively.
This year, 372 students took the SAT, earning an average of 612 on the reading portion and 600 in mathematics. State averages for reading totaled 547 for the year and math average 539, slightly above national figures.
Through the College Board, the district currently offers 19 Advanced Placement courses. Roughly 1,000 students are enrolled in AP classes, administrators said, 639 of which took AP exams this past year.
Of those 600 students, 87.4 percent earned a score of 3 or higher in their exams, scores for which most colleges will award course credit.