East Union math and science see improvement

AFTON - This year’s Iowa State Performance Profile scores have been released, measuring the performance of schools across Iowa. Scores are based on a variety of metrics including attendance, testing scores and post-secondary readiness.

Iowa saw an increase overall in school ratings; the state average increased to 63.28% (about 442.96/700 for elementary, 569.62/900 for secondary) compared to last year’s 60.95% (426.65/700, 548.55/900). Both East Union schools remained above the average.

Middle-High

The return to a ranking of Commendable doesn’t tell the story of improvement at East Union Middle-High. A score of 67% (603.01/900) improves off of last year’s 63.74% (573.64/900) score.

Enrolled students matched the previous year with 242 students across grades 6-12.

One of the goals for East Union was fighting against chronic absenteeism, which last year was measured for 37.94% of students missing 10% or more of the school year.

The largest success for the school, increased awareness seems to have made an impact as East Union beat the state average this year with a score of 13.94%. Conferences and campaigns to inform families on stricter absenteeism guidelines passed down from new state regulations seemed to have had an effect.

Standardized testing seemed to stump students this year, with decreases in growth and proficiencies from ISASP. Growth in mathematics and language arts saw decreases to 45 and 41.5 from 53 and 49, respectively.

The same story applies to language arts proficiency, with a score of 77.78% dropping from last year’s score of 81.91%. However, both math and science saw an increase this year, with 74.27% in math improving from 71.36% in 2024 and an 84.93% in science improving from 80.0%.

Graduation rates saw a minor increase, with 96.97% of students graduating from the high school in four years compared to last year’s 95%.

Yet, post-secondary readiness both saw decreases from the previous year. These scores measure how students could prepare for their lives after graduation.

The first index, college credit, measures the percentage of students earning college credits while in high school. In 2025, 63.64% of students earned a college credit compared to 2024 where the score was 66.67%.

The other index, work-based learning, measures how many students participated in a work-based experience. These can range from internships, programs or simulated experiences. In 2025, less than half of East Union’s secondary class took part, with 48.39% decreasing from last year’s 55.56%.

Elementary

Compared to last year’s Exceptional ranking and a score of 78.75% (551.25/700) which placed East Union in the top 1.1% of schools in Iowa, 2025 would be a challenge to reach the same heights as the previous year.

“The results may fluctuate to some extent based on the learning needs of the group of students we have,” Superintendent Tim Kuehl said in 2024 while speaking on the profile. “That’s a challenge with having smaller groups of students in the data set, stability is more challenging to maintain.”

As predicted by East Union leadership, the school dropped to a lower score this year with the school at 70.25% and a High Performing ranking.

Test and attendance performance for 182 enrolled students across grades K-5 were measured for the performance profile.

Chronic absenteeism in the elementary was lower than the state average, with only 10.93% of students having missed 10% or more of the school year.

The new performance metric of attendance growth (which describes how previous chronically-absent students attend classes) measured 4.67 compared to the state average of 4.96.

The performance profile also measures growth and proficiency in mathematics, language arts and science. Growth measures year-over-year improvement in scores on the ISASP test.

Growth in mathematics took a dip this year, falling to 47.5 compared to the state average of 50. Last year, growth in mathematics was scored at 57.

However, growth in language arts saw improvement this year, with a notably high score of 87.5 compared to the state average of 50. Last year at East Union Elementary, growth in language arts was scored at 85.

Proficiency measures the percentage of students who scored “proficient” or above on the annual ISASP test.

All proficiencies in the three subjects were above the state average, scoring 70.83%, 73.53% and 76.92% in science, mathematics and language arts, respectively. All three are still a decrease from the elementary’s previous year, which scored 89.47%, 82.02% and 80.68% in the same three subjects.