The Kentucky Department of Education has released the 2023 state school report card, while the new data shows growth in some key areas.

Education officials say students are still struggling to catch up from the lost Classroom time because of the COVID 19 pandemic.

Kentucky's education system is still in recovery.

The data that you will see in the school report card release paints a complex picture for the Commonwealth's education community.

According to data from the new School report Card, when it came to factors like state assessment results, graduation rates and post-secondary readiness, most Kentucky's elementary, middle and high schools ranked in the middle on student assessments.

The report shows less than half of all Kentucky students were proficient in reading.

But there were some improvements, especially at the elementary school level, where 47% of students were considered proficient or distinguished.

That's up from 45% in 2022.

Students at the middle school level made modest gains over the previous year, while high school students remained the same at 44%.

Elementary school students also showed improvement in math, while middle school students remained at the same proficiency level and high schoolers dropped.

Interim Education Commissioner Robin Fields.

Kinney believes difficulty in recruiting and retaining highly qualified teachers in that subject may be partially to blame for the low math scores.

We really need those high quality teachers, and so recruitment and retention of those high quality teachers to afford the very best instructor that we have at the at the front of our classroom to assist our students.

Those are just problem areas.

So we have to we have to figure out ways to also not only get those teachers that traditionally were born to be a teacher, their family members are all teachers and they they are that pipeline into the classroom almost normally.

We need to find those other individuals that have the strong experience in math and science to also be at the front of our classrooms as well.

But the pandemic had the biggest impact on student learning, and Kinney said it will take time to get students back on track.

We must not underestimate how much of an impact the COVID 19 pandemic has had on our students.

We know that changes in the way instruction was delivered from 2020 to 2022 had an impact on student learning.

Despite the tremendous efforts of Kentucky educators and parents to remediate those impacts, that combined with the continue impacts on students, staff and our communities from our devastating floods and tornadoes in some areas, as well as just the day to day challenges that school administrators, educators, parents, families and students face on a daily basis.

We expect that there will be needed a multi-year recovery period before school performance really gets back to similar pre-pandemic levels.

And the Kinney said the Department of Education will remain focused on mitigating the learning loss brought on by the pandemic.

Some efforts are already underwa The Commonwealth, like other states, has utilized funding from the American Rescue Plan towards learning loss support.

Districts have worked hard by expanding tutoring.

They've added more summer learning and afterschool programs to enhance our recovery efforts.

Districts have also focused on strategies to support the whole child social, emotional and physical health in order to create environments where children are ready to learn.

We thank producer Echo Gammel for that report.

Tomorrow, there are more key findings from the Kentucky school report card that we'll have for you.