Stewartville school officials are working to close a local achievement gap. The School Board, at a virtual meeting on Monday, May 18, unanimously approved an achievement and integration program for 2020-23 designed to close the achievement gap among Stewartville students eligible for free- or reduced-price lunches and those who aren't. Rebecca Wortman, School Board chair, and members Lori Miller-Beach, Will Welch and Ryan Ravenhorst, all present at the Central Education Center, and members Dean Mikel, Todd Emanuel and Nichol O'Neill, present via teleconference, all approved the program. Sharon Prunty, principal of Stewartville Middle School, told the School Board that currently, Stewartville students in grades three through 10 who aren't eligible for free- and reduced-price lunches are scoring 18.5 percent higher on MCA reading tests than students eligible for those lunches. The program's goal is to reduce that gap to 12.5 percent by 2023 when comparing the total student population with the free- and reduced-price lunch population, Prunty said... For more on this story pick up your copy of the June 2 Stewartville STAR.
