Afterschool program increases Youngstown students' competency by a year

YOUNGSTOWN

The results are in and Youngstown City Schools’ Afterschool Program helps students gain about a year’s growth in math and reading.

“It’s just amazing and we are very pleased,” said Kelly Weeks, district deputy chief of transformation. “We are working on getting our kids caught up and closing those achievement gaps.”

The district unveiled an after-school program in November to help teachers provide intervention and enrichment opportunities for students.

In the after-school program, students work with i-Ready – computer-based coursework that evaluates and then accommodates students through interactive problems, games and more.

Students who began in November and finished in April – not quite a full school year – made an average of a full year’s growth in reading and about three-quarters of a year’s growth in math, according to an i-Ready end-of-the-year diagnostic report.

The results are from a comparison of a beginning diagnostic test students took in November with another test students took in April, Weeks explained.

Read more about the program and its results in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.