DeSSA + Smarter Balanced, SY 2024-25
All grades, all students. % Proficient.English Language Arts
59.6%
State avg 41.4%
District avg 40.8%
County avg 43.7%
+1.3pp since 2023-24
Mathematics
53.4%
State avg 34.0%
District avg 38.1%
County avg 37.7%
+1.4pp since 2023-24
Science
28.2%
State avg 24.2%
District avg 19.7%
County avg 24.8%
-5.1pp since 2023-24
Social Studies
65.3%
State avg 41.7%
District avg 42.2%
County avg 40.6%
+13.3pp since 2023-24
What this means: On the DeSSA + Smarter Balanced, Delaware's statewide test, about 60 of every 100 students at this school read and write at grade level, about 53 of 100 do math at grade level, about 28 of 100 are at grade level in science, and about 65 of 100 are at grade level in social studies. Across all Delaware schools, those numbers are about 41, 34, 24, and 42. Reading and writing scores are up about 1 points since 2023, while math scores are up about 1 points, science scores are down about 5 points, and social studies scores are up about 13 points.
What is DeSSA + Smarter Balanced?
DeSSA + Smarter Balanced is the statewide standardized test administered by Delaware public schools.
What does "% Proficient" mean?
It is the share of students at the school who performed at grade level or above on the test, summed across the top two of four performance levels. A higher number is better.
What does 59.6% mean for English Language Arts at Southern Delaware School of the Arts?
It means about 59.6 percent of students tested at Southern Delaware School of the Arts performed at grade level or above on the DeSSA + Smarter Balanced English Language Arts test in 2024-25. The statewide average for Delaware that year was 41.4%. The other students fell into the lower performance levels.
How is the state average calculated?
It is a weighted average, not a simple average of each school's number. We multiply each public school's score by how many of its students tested, add those together for all schools in Delaware, and divide by the total students tested that year. This way a big school with 1,500 students counts more than a small school with 50 students, which is the right way to ask "how did the typical student do this year?". District and county averages on this page use the same method, just scoped to that district or county.
Where does this data come from?
Delaware Department of Education, Delaware System of Student Assessment (DeSSA) for Science/Social Studies + Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment for ELA/Math. School-level All Students subgroup from the Delaware Open Data Portal (Socrata, dataset `ms6b-mt82`). Headline metric is the cumulative "% Proficient" rate (top 2 of 4 levels).
How often is it updated?
DeSSA + Smarter Balanced is administered once a year (spring). Results are released by the state in the summer or early fall. We refresh this page after each annual release.
