Northern Lehigh School District directors and principals agree progress must be made following low student performance scores.

At Monday’s school board meeting, administrators revealed the district’s 2025-2026 beginning-of-the-year assessment results.

The board heard from Peters Elementary Principal James Schnyderite, Slatington Elementary Principal Todd Breiner, Northern Lehigh Middle School Principal Daniel Williams, and Northern Lehigh High School Principal Dr. Lori Bali.

Board President Mathias Green said he’d like to see where they were in kindergarten and see where they are to see if any significant improvements have been made.

Assistant Superintendent Dr. Tania Stoker said they do track that internally and follow those students and cohorts through time.

“It gets a little bit difficult sometimes to report that and how students are moving through the system,” Stoker said. “But we do track that as part of our data meetings that we do internally in the buildings.”

Director Donna Kulp asked Bali when the next time is they will a math score so they can see progress.

Bali said the next one will be early November.

“They’re very bad, beginning of this year,” Kulp said. “Hoping to see better math scores.”

Bali agreed, and added, “We look at the data and we’ve gotten pretty good at analyzing the data, but we haven’t been great at action, and that’s what our focus is.

“I think we have the tools in place,” Bali said. “Now we just have to execute the plan.”

The following scores were reported:

Peters Elementary School

Dibels 8 ELA

• In kindergarten, 41% of students are well below benchmark, 24% are below benchmark, 21% are at benchmark, and 14% are above benchmark.

• Grade 1: 26% well below, 25% below, 38% at, and 11% above.

• Grade 2: has 29% well below, 13% below, 29% at, and 29% above.

• The composite score for the entire school shows 31% well below, 21% below, 30% at, and 18% above.

• Overall, they’ve seen a 5% improvement, and are at the National average.

IXL Math

• Grade 1: 7% above grade level, 63% on grade level, 24% below grade level, 1% far below grade level, with 5% not pinpointed.

• Grade 2: 4% above grade level, 51% on grade level, 19% below grade level, 6% far below grade level, with 20% not pinpointed.

• 6% above grade level, 57% on grade level, 21% below grade level, 4% far below grade level, 12% not pinpointed.

Slatington Elementary School

Dibels 8 ELA

• Grade 3: 27% well below, 18% below, 34% at, 21% above.

• Grade 4: 25% well below, 23% below, 45% at, 7% above.

• Grade 5: 25% well below, 23% below, 41% at, 11% above.

• Overall, 53% at or above, 47 below/well below.

• Overall, they’ve seen a 5% improvement.

IXL ELA

• 47% at or above, 49% below or far below, 5% not pinpointed.

IXL Math

• 40% at or above, 54% below or far below, 5% not pinpointed.

NL Middle School

IXL ELA

• 23% above grade level, 8% on grade level, 14% below grade level, 50% far below grade level, 6% not pinpointed.

IXL Math

• 8% above grade level, 23% on grade level, 20% below grade level, 43% far below grade level, 6% not pinpointed

NL High School

IXL ELA

• 19.2% above grade level, 12.3% on grade level, 13% below grade level, 55% far below grade level.

IXL Math

• 1.2% above grade level, 8.8% on grade level, 10.4% below grade level, 79.5% far below grade level.