FOND DU LAC, Wis. — While most of the state remains below its 2019 levels in math and reading, one school district has made a near-full recovery since the pandemic.
An annual report by Harvard and Stanford universities that measures how students are recovering from learning loss — the Education Recovery Scorecard — shows Wisconsin ranks 16th in math and 30th in reading.
However, the Fond du Lac School District is one district that has made significant improvement since COVID-19.
At Parkside Elementary, third-grade teacher Kristine Mittelstadt said they’ve worked hard to improve their scores.
She’s been with the district for 23 years, teaching through the pandemic.
“It feels like it was such a long time ago, but it was only five years ago. And to think back to that time of ‘How did we do it?’”
Mittelstadt said she’s seen how COVID negatively impacted her students.
“When I think about literacy, we do know that we have gaps within our reading,” said Mittelstadt.
But according to the district’s scorecard data gathered by Harvard and Stanford, its reading scores have grown the most out of all 421 school districts in Wisconsin.
The study ranks the state a grade level below in reading overall.
Fond du Lac School District Superintendent Jeff Fleig said he’s proud of the improvement they’ve made since 2020.
“The school we’re in today, Parkside Elementary, was the lowest ranked elementary school in the state of Wisconsin,” said Fleig.
The Department of Public Instruction labeled Parkside as “fails to meet expectations” on the 2020-2021 report card. In 2024, it earned an “exceeds expectations” score on its report card.
“What really made a difference for us was, we implemented data-driven instruction,” said Fleig.
The district has partnered with the University of Virginia for educational reform.
Mittelstadt said the partnership is making a difference.
“We meet every six days. We look at an assessment and we dig into it,” she said.
She said this method works because it focuses on each student’s engagement and performance.
“When I think about my group in front of me, I know some can do it and others need just a little bit of support to be able to help them work through what it is that they’re working on,” said Mittelstadt.
The Fond du Lac School District also scored above its 2019 levels in math.
“If you would have told me when I arrived that we were going to see this kind of improvement, I would have said, ‘No way,’” said Fleig.
The School District of Waukesha also had growth, with the report showing the district nearly recovered to its 2019 levels in both reading and math.
