State Report Brings Good News

Yesterday, the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) released district data as part of the Next Generation Accountability System, which revealed exciting news for Manchester Public Schools. Specifically, Indicator 6, Postsecondary Readiness, reflects the hard work of students and staff as well as the district's deep commitment to providing a wide array of college credit-bearing classes that inspire the interests of students across content areas at Manchester High School.

Manchester High School now exceeds the state average on the Postsecondary Readiness Indicator, which measures the percentage of juniors and seniors meeting the college-and-career-readiness benchmark by earning three or more dual enrollment credits through passing Advanced Placement exams or college credit-bearing courses or meeting the state benchmark on the SAT during their high school career.

In 24-25, 53.9% of students at Manchester High School met the state’s standard compared to a state average of 47.2%. That percentage is up from 44.2% in 2023-24 and 24.9% in 2020-21. While there remain achievement gaps in student performance by demographic, the achievement gaps at Manchester High School are 10 percentage points lower than the gaps state-wide.

Continuous improvement like this occurs only with consistent community investment in student success to ensure all students have access to a comprehensive high school program. This continued growth indicates that broad access to these courses has made a deep and meaningful impact on students who are preparing to enter a rapidly changing workforce requiring many new and different skills.

Manchester also grew on the overall performance index, continuing our trend of year-to-year improvement, closing the gap between performance in Manchester and performance in Connecticut, and surpassing pre-pandemic levels in Manchester.

Our goal remains to engage all of our students in the highest quality 21st-century education and prepare everyone to be lifelong learners and contributing members of society. We have more work to do, but results such as these on both the state-wide overall accountability index and the college and career readiness indicator demonstrate measurable progress in the district.

I truly appreciate the hard work and support of our students, parents, families, staff, and the entire community.

Enjoy your weekend.

Sincerely,

Matt Geary