Springfield Public Schools improves scores for third year 

Nicole Holt: SPS officials are happy with gains in academics but continue to seek improvements. 

More than 500 Missouri public school districts are getting their yearly report cards today, as the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released annual performance reports under the Missouri School Improvement Program. 

Annual performance report data is presented to the Missouri State Board of Education for school district accreditation, according to the agency’s website. 

Springfield Public Schools earned 166 points out of a possible 200 on its annual performance report, a portion of which is available here. That marks an 83% APR score, up from 78.2% in 2024 and 75.5% in 2023.   

SPS remains fully accredited, the district said in a news release. With roughly 24,500 students and 3,500 employees, it’s often touted as Missouri’s largest taxpayer-supported school district. 

“We started with the Missouri Learning Standards; that's where you start,” SPS Superintendent Grenita Lathan said. “And we develop our plan to ensure that our teachers are teaching that.”  

Lathan briefed a handful of Springfield reporters about the APR results over Zoom on Nov. 4, joined by other SPS officials, including Deputy Superintendent of Academics Nicole Holt. 

Lathan noted that in recent years SPS has been using a “universal screener” internal test to measure student learning growth and has adopted professional learning plans for faculty and support staff. The district has also adopted “positive behavioral intervention support,” now in its third year, to address behavior issues among students. 

Lathan said SPS had extended the PBIS approach to include Springfield middle and high schools over the past three years and banned mobile phones a year ago. State law began requiring such bans in public schools at the beginning of this school year. 

Lathan added, “There's been a focus and continued support and training for our leaders, our teachers and also our support staff, about how to not only implement positive behavior intervention support, (but) our board also supported additional funding for each campus per pupil – about for them to be able to utilize funding for incentives and different ways to keep (and) get students engaged.” 

SPS documented growth in the percentage of students scoring at advanced and proficient levels in all subjects tested last school year, when the data was collected, officials said in a news release announcing the APR scores. 

“We’re holding ourselves accountable for following the plan,” Lathan said. “Our principals and teachers have done a phenomenal job. And I would say our parents, in supporting what we shared, is the key to success, to ensure that students gradate success-ready upon graduation.” 

Graduation rates, for many years a topic of discussion for SPS, increased to 99%, up from 97.3% last year and 96.5% in 2023. The SPS graduating class of 2025 was the district’s largest to date, with 1,992 students, up from 1,939 in 2024. 

Asked about the workforce readiness of students when they graduate, and any feedback by the business community in that regard, Lathan said SPS had not formally surveyed businesses for feedback. 

She added, “What we're seeing is the number of our students that are graduating, 99% that are graduating, that are moving on, either to the university or actually going out to work based on their experiences, whether they're in the teaching profession, they're in welding, they're in health care, so we're seeing them being able to obtain jobs.” 

Scores in English language arts increased by 1.9%, mathematics by 3.3%, science by 4.2% and social studies by 3.1%. But while students scored better on all four subject matters, fewer than half of SPS students scored as advanced or proficient on any of them. The largest portion of the student body scoring advanced/proficient was for English language arts, at 47.2% of students, up from 45.3% last year. 

“Are we so happy with our data?” asked Holt, the deputy superintendent of academics. “Yes, we’re happy with consistency and that improvement over time. But I would be remiss not to acknowledge, right – 40%, 45%, 47% – that means there's a whole 50-plus-percent of our kids that are not proficient or advanced, so we're not done. This is by no means us throwing our hands up and saying, ‘We did it.’” 

According to annual performance report data shared with news reporters before its public release today, Springfield high school students made gains in advanced/proficient scores on the Missouri Assessment Program, or MAP test, along with end-of-course assessments in all subjects, including an 11.9% increase in scores earned by algebra I students. More than half of students taking English II and algebra II scored advanced/proficient, while just 38.3% scored that highly for biology courses and 40.7% for government courses. Since 2023, SPS’s algebra I and II students scored double-digit gains in the percentage of students scoring proficient/advanced. 

SPS students scored an annual attendance rate this year of 92.12%, up from 90.86% in 2022, marking the third consecutive year of increased attendance. 

“I'm excited that people understand that in order for children to receive a quality education, they must attend school, must be in school on time and attend school every day,” Lathan told reporters. 

At least 11 of SPS’s 55 school buildings improved their APR scores, according to the news release, notably Gray Elementary, with a 98.1% score that showed 22.5 percentage points of improvement, district officials said.  

Harrison Elementary earned 100% of APR points possible. 

The Missouri School Improvement Plan is now in its sixth version, according to DESE’s website, and state officials began implementing it in the 2023-24 school year. MSIP 6 contains “more rigorous requirements and higher expectations,” according to comments by Karla Eslinger, Missouri education commissioner, in a news release announcing the 2024 APR scores. 

Looking forward, Lathan said, “My ongoing concern will be what funding looks like for Springfield Public Schools, and also our schools in the state of Missouri as we move into the ’27-’28 school year, when a new funding formula has been established. So that’s already a concern to me right now, because that is an unknown that’s out there.”