Test results show a tale of two school systems across the Lehigh Valley, with suburban districts Southern Lehigh and Parkland ranking in the top 10% statewide and the large urban districts of Allentown and Bethlehem falling in the bottom 20%.

While learning loss from the pandemic has dominated discussion of school performance in recent years, Lehigh Valley school leaders said their focus is shifting to strengthening curriculum and preparing students to succeed in an increasingly digital learning environment.

As the state transitions to digital-only exams this spring, many Lehigh Valley districts started moving their 2025 assessments online, and school leaders speculated that some of the drops in English scores could have been due to unfamiliarity with the new format.

Statewide, English scores dropped 4.5 percentage points to 48.5% proficiency. Lehigh Valley school districts saw their English scores drop 3.9 points to 47.8% proficiency.

In math, statewide proficiency rose 1.3 percentage points to 41.7% proficiency. Lehigh Valley math scores rose 2 points to 41.6% proficiency.

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School leaders identified secondary math as a persistent pain point: Middle school assessments suffer from an alignment issue, as the most advanced students take high school-level courses during the year and then need extra test prep to take their grade’s Keystone exam.

Algebra is also a point of focus for local districts, with Allentown naming the subject one of its primary target areas for the year.

Overall, Southern Lehigh and Parkland topped the tables for Lehigh Valley’s 17 school districts. Southern Lehigh ranked 31st out of 499 reporting districts statewide in the 2025 PSSA assessments, while Parkland ranked 38th. Southern Lehigh’s combined proficiency of 70% edged out Parkland’s 67.8% mark.

Lehigh Valley’s two largest districts fell on the other end of the scale. Allentown’s 16% combined proficiency placed it 484 out of 499 reporting districts statewide, while Bethlehem came in at 420 with 33.2% combined proficiency.

Here’s what leaders in those four districts had to say about their results.

Southern Lehigh: Updated English curriculum, math under review

Scores from Southern Lehigh’s 1,459 students in grades 3-8 showed a combined 70.2% proficiency in English, down 7.2 points from last year, and a 69.7% proficiency in math, up 2.8 points from last year.

“I’m proud of the kids. I’m proud of the teachers. I’m proud of the administrators, you know, because we certainly set ourselves aside in those data points,” Superintendent Karen Trinkle said.

The district recently updated its English language arts curriculum and is in the middle of reviewing its math curriculum.

“We’re really looking to find something that works, that’s innovative, that we can support our teachers in, that is the best instructional strategies for our kids and our students,” Trinkle said.

This was the first year that a majority of the district’s students took their exams online.

“It’s reasonable to assume that this change in testing modality may have had an impact on test scores, especially in the earlier grade levels where students have had less experience taking tests and writing essays on a device as opposed to paper,” Tamara Solometo, director of curriculum and instruction, said during the Nov. 24 school board meeting.

The district’s iPads were ordered with keyboards and students get 30 minutes of typing instruction each week, Solometo noted.

The district’s elementary English scores ranged from 71.2% proficiency at Hopewell to 80.3% proficiency at Liberty Bell.

Hopewell Principal Lynn Chromiak showed the board the last four years of PSSA results and called out success among young high scorers.

“We also had a higher number of advanced English language arts students in third grade — from all four years — so that was really nice to see that our advanced students, that we’re not just looking at intervention and providing intervention but we are also growing some of our highest-achieving students,” Chromiak said.

Both Liberati Intermediate and Southern Lehigh Middle School scored 68.9% proficiency in English.

Liberati Principal Deanna Webb said she’d like to see improvements in eighth grade results, noting that grade only receives 45 minutes of English instruction because one of its core classes is replaced by a world language.

“I think that’s a big part of why that consistently is where we see a struggle, and we’ve looked at some of that with some of our supports,” Webb said.

Keystone literature results at Southern Lehigh High School showed 79% proficiency.

District elementary math scores ranged from 83.6% proficiency at Hopewell to 86.6% proficiency at Liberty Bell. Middle school math proficiency came in at 56.5% at Southern Lehigh and 72.4% at Liberati.

The 2025 eighth grade cohort at Liberati saw its math scores drop from 62.1% in seventh grade to 51.2% in eighth grade, Webb noted, arguing that students who must take both their high school-level exams and their grade-level assessments are overwhelmed by a month of testing.

“I would strongly advocate for students who have to take the Keystone to not have to take a PSSA in math that same year because we see that this is definitely a challenge,” Webb said.

Algebra students at Southern Lehigh High School earned 59.9% proficiency on their Keystone exams.

SLHS Principal Joshua Miller told the board that college-readiness metrics should rank in importance alongside test scores, noting the district’s 97.1% graduation rate. Last school year, 68% of district graduates went on to a four-year school, while 17% entered a two-year or technical training school.

Parkland: Emphasis on K-5 math

Parkland’s 4,685 students in grades 3-8 earned a combined 69% proficiency in English, down 5.9 percentage points from last year, and a 66.6% proficiency in math, up 1.8 points from last year.

District elementary English results ranged from 56.9% proficiency at Schnecksville to 74.9% proficiency at Fred. J. Jaindl.

“We have a very strong, consistent elementary program in terms of our curriculum standards and instruction, and I think we just have — we’re a large district, that’s also very diverse, and that probably answers where we’re at,” Superintendent Mark Madson said.

Elementary math instruction has been a recent focus area, but Madson said a new English language arts program for K-5 is in the works and will be fully implemented for the 2026-27 school year.

Middle school English scores came in at 64.6% proficiency at Orefield and 72.3% proficiency at Springhouse. Literature Keystone test takers at Parkland High School earned 79.9% proficiency.

The district has placed a heavy emphasis on K-5 math in the last few years, and Madson said he was pleased to see that scores either remained steady or increased in many grade levels.

Parkland elementary school math scores ranged from 66.1% proficiency at Schnecksville to 83.9% proficiency at Parkway Manor.

Middle school math scores came in at 53% at Orefield and 57.7% proficiency at Springhouse.

Most of Parkland’s middle school students are already enrolled in high school-level math, Madson said, and those students undertake extra test prep to review the grade-level content that shows up on PSSA exams.

“The PSSA math is a challenging test, and so if they’re not getting that coursework throughout the whole year, it’s probably going to show up,” Madson said. “And that’s what we see — we see a discrepancy in our Algebra 1 Keystones versus our seventh or eighth grade PSSA math.”

Algebra Keystone test takers at Parkland High School earned 60.2% proficiency.

Madson echoed many of the points made by Southern Lehigh principals, who emphasized that continuous, short-term data monitoring has a greater impact on teachers’ day-to-day planning than the snapshot-in-time data that each spring’s administration of statewide exams provides.

In Southern Lehigh, daily skills tests are administered during Spartan periods. For Parkland teachers, common assessments at each grade level are among the progress monitoring tools used to track student progress.

“There is some value in standardized test scores from PSSAs and Keystones, but in my opinion, we get so much more out of what we’re doing internally,” Madson said, “and so I think the high-stakes testing — all the time, all the money that we’re putting into this across the state probably could be better served back at the home districts with internal measures.”

At the high school level, Parkland is also tracking AP and SAT scores, as well as college placement data.

“I’m really proud of the efforts that our teaching staff has put in over the past few years in terms of addressing the areas of need for us,” Madson said.

Allentown: Tracking growth

Allentown’s 6,923 students in grades 3-8 earned 17% proficiency on English PSSAs, down 6.2 points from last year, and 15% proficiency on math, up 1.5 points from last year. The district ranked 484th out of 499 statewide.

The state sets growth standards for each school, and seven schools met or exceeded their growth goals in English, said Melissa Smith, executive director of learning and teaching. She also noted that scores from 13 district schools show that English learners, who constitute 22% of the district’s students, are growing at a rate higher than the state average.

Elementary English results ranged from 11.3% proficiency at Central to 48.6% proficiency at Lehigh Parkway.

The district has added a reading specialist at each school to coplan, coteach and model instructional strategies, Smith said.

Middle school English results ranged from 12.7% proficiency at Raub to 18.5% proficiency at South Mountain.

Sixth grade students are piloting an artificial intelligence-enabled tool that asks students questions reading passages and provides them with scaffolds to go back and strengthen their answers, Smith said.

Literature Keystone results were lowest at Dieruff, with 31.7% proficiency, and highest at Building 21, with 37.2% proficiency.

District efforts to build a culture of literacy include the installation of 25 book vending machines that will allow students to buy books using reward tokens and the soon-to-launch Superintendent’s Book Club that will name a recommended book for elementary, middle and high school students, Smith said.

Jefferson’s 15.5% math proficiency came in at the low end of the district’s elementary results, with Lehigh Parkway’s 55.1% proficiency being the high point.

Smith noted that 11 schools met or exceeded their state growth goals in math.

Middle school math scores ranged from 3.6% proficiency at Trexler to 10.8% proficiency at South Mountain.

Improving algebra instruction is part of the district’s current strategic plan. Students now receive a double dose of algebra instruction daily, enrolling in either a double-blocked course or an algebra course and a lab. HeyTutor is also providing tutoring support each period, Smith said.

Algebra Keystone results were lowest at Building 21, with 5.3% proficiency, and highest at Dieruff, with 13.1% proficiency.

Improving student attendance emerged as a concern of incoming school board members during the last election cycle, and the board has begun to review attendance data at its meetings. Last year saw a 5.3-point drop in chronic absenteeism, Smith said.

A rise in chronic absenteeism was one visible result of how the pandemic affected schools nationwide. Although the pandemic remains a part of students’ stories, Smith said the district’s current work is less about addressing how students might have fallen behind and more about addressing the whole child, including preparing students to be career ready.

“The pandemic is always going to be a part of a student’s educational period from when they’ve been our student, but in my mind we are looking at every student individually with what supports they need — that is where they are right now,” Smith said.

Bethlehem Area: ‘Moving in the right direction’

PSSA scores from Bethlehem Area’s 5,628 students in grades 3-8 placed the district 420the out of 499 districts statewide. English scores dropped 3 points from last year to 36.1% proficiency, while math scores rose 3.5 points from last year to 30.2% proficiency.

“In Bethlehem, I’m confident that we’re moving in the right direction, and I’m really pleased with some of our growth — that said, I feel strongly that we have a lot more work to do,” Assistant Superintendent Maureen Leeson said.

Elementary English scores ranged from 13.4% proficiency at Fountain Hill to 75.5% proficiency at Hanover.

Online testing is not new to the district, with elementary students fully transitioning two years ago and secondary students making the jump a few years before that, Leeson said.

Students are given a white sheet of paper to help with prewriting strategies and other work that might be easier on paper. Leeson also encourages students to complete the online tool training that demonstrates how to use PSSA functions like digital highlighters and the district’s textbooks often include digital supplements that have similar tools.

“I would not blame scores on online testing,” Leeson said. “I think our kids should be able to be successful no matter what the format of the test is.”

Middle school English scores were lowest at Broughal, with 17.9% proficiency, and highest at Nitschmann, with 45.1% proficiency.

Literature Keystone scores came in at 43.8% proficiency at Liberty and 51.2% proficiency at Freedom.

The district has been focusing on active processing skills in its math curriculum, and that skill building is starting to cross over into English results, Leeson said.

“We’re aiming for our students to seek feedback, monitor their progress, self-evaluate their current levels of understanding and use a little metacognition, thinking about their thinking,” Leeson said.

Elementary math scores were lowest at Fountain Hill, with 12.1% proficiency, and highest at Hanover, with 80.4% proficiency.

Middle school math scores ranged from 6.8% proficiency at Broughal to 33.8% proficiency at Nitschmann.

Fourth and eighth grade math scores are at a 10-year high, Leeson said, and fifth grade scores are at a six-year high. Those results are part of a three-to-four year process to invest in strong instruction and focus on students gaining the grade-level skills they need to complete grade-level work, Leeson said.

The district offers Algebra I in eighth grade, but students on the advanced math track receive all sixth-to-eighth grade content through their sixth and seventh grade courses, which helps eighth graders prepare for their PSSAs, Leeson said.

Algebra Keystone results came in at 23.7% proficiency at Liberty and 33.4% proficiency at Freedom.

When thinking about student needs as a whole, Leeson pushed back on the idea that schools are moving away from dealing directly with pandemic-related concerns.

“Our kindergartners are the COVID babies,” Leeson said, noting that the increased screen time at young ages likely affected language development for infants and toddlers born during the pandemic.

Schools will be talking about COVID for a long time to come, but it is still just one chapter in students’ lives, Leeson said.

“I want us to start talking about what is in our circle of control and how are we going to support our kids because we cannot allow COVID to be an excuse,” Leeson said. “It’s just part of our reality.”