School District Boosts Reading Scores 32% in One Year

When students at Southwestern Central School District in New York returned after the pandemic, proficiency scores in some subjects had plummeted to 50%. Three years later, the district is being celebrated nationwide for one of the most impressive academic comebacks in recent memory.

The turnaround started in summer 2023 when Southwestern partnered with Solution Tree, an educational consulting organization. The district formed a team to establish clear goals and create better collaboration between teachers at every grade level.

Teachers dove into the work immediately. They participated in the district's first book study together, joined online professional development courses, and attended workshops to learn new teaching strategies.

One major focus was redesigning how the school day worked. Staff learned to implement daily intervention blocks so struggling students could get extra support without missing core instruction.

The results speak for themselves. Sixth-grade reading proficiency scores soared from 36% in 2024 to 68% in 2025, beating the state average by 33 percentage points. Math scores jumped 10.5% across the district, and science proficiency in grades five through eight climbed from 50% to 54%.

"It's a way for them to advertise the success of districts that are utilizing professional learning communities," said Superintendent Molly Moore. "For us it was a way to just see the progress that we've made."

The Ripple Effect

The changes go beyond test scores. Teachers who once felt frustrated by inconsistent collaboration now regularly analyze student data together and share strategies that work. The culture shift means every teacher has support, and every struggling student has a clearer path forward.

Solution Tree now features Southwestern as a success story on their website, offering hope to other districts facing similar challenges. The recognition validates what teachers and administrators already knew: when educators work together with the right tools and strategies, remarkable progress becomes possible.

This school year brings even more resources and continued expansion of the programs that sparked such dramatic improvement. What started as a response to crisis has become a model for excellence that other districts across the country are now studying.