By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph school officials are celebrating improvements in the state report card even as they vow to keep pressing to improve scores.
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has released its 2025 Annual Performance Report. Overall, the St. Joseph School District scored 74.7% on the state assessment, up from 63.2% two years ago.
Assistant Superintendent of Academics and Education Services, Stacia Studer, says St. Joseph students scored better in English, but the district wants to see improvements in literacy.
“And so, we did grow in our state assessment scores. Not the growth that we’d had hope to see. The state has really rallied around a state initiative called LETRS and that’s professional learning for our teachers on how students learn to read. And so, we have provided that professional learning support for our teachers,” Studer tells reporters during a news conference. “What we realized is that we wanted to ensure that all students are being taught on grade level.”
St. Joseph did best on Social Studies with improvement in Math and Science. The school district graduation rate improved. School officials say that though attendance continues to rebound from the COVID pandemic years, it needs has room for improvement.
Studer says an emphasis this year is being placed on reading.
“We want students to be exposed to the questions that they will face on those state achievement tests,” Studer says. “Really rally around what those questions look like for our teachers and working on rigor and depth of knowledge, ensuring that we are teaching at high levels if questioning, pushing our questioning to get kids to think more critically.”
The St. Joseph School District Missouri School Improvement Program (MSIP) 6 performance score improved again in the latest reports, moving from 52.5% in 2023 to 65.3% in 2025. DESE reports St. Joseph students are approaching state standards in English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science. Students are listed as on track with Social Studies. The test scores of St. Joseph students rose in all subject areas. The graduation rate rose 2.9% from 2024 to 2025 to 91.9%.
Every high school and middle school showed improvement. Several elementary schools demonstrated impressive growth, including a perfect 100% score at Eugene Field Elementary School.
Attendance remains difficult for the St. Joseph School District with Superintendent, Ashly McGinnis, stating attendance has not fully recovered from the COVID pandemic, though it has shown improvement.
While acknowledging she wants greater improvement, McGinnis does say that the overall score is something to celebrate.
“We haven’t been above 70% since COVD,” McGinnis notes. “And so, 70% is kind of that mark for accreditation. We’ve gone through this MSIP 6 cycle, it’s a little complex, but we’ve heard this rumor in our community we’re going to be at jeopardy of accreditation, we could be losing accreditation, and that’s just simply not true.”
School officials say they want instruction in the core subjects to be consistent in all classrooms within the district.
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