All seven school districts in the county scored above the state average for the Keystone exams taken during the 2015-16 school year, with many districts improving their scores from the spring 2015 exams.

The Keystone exams are three subject tests given in the spring to 11th-grade students: literature, algebra I and biology, and scores for 2016 have been released by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

The Butler School District administration is pleased with the students’ scores, both beating the state and improving from the previous year’s scores.

Brian Slamecka, assistant superintendent of secondary education, said, “There’s always room for improvement, no matter what your scores are. I’m happy that we continue to show improvement. Our teachers work very hard, and they do a very good job.”

Other districts that beat both the state average and the 2015 scores are Karns City, Seneca Valley and South Butler.

South Butler Superintendent David Zupsic said the district was pleased with the scores.

“It’s just the result of a lot of hard work by a lot of people,” he said.

At the same time, three districts dropped slightly in scores for the algebra I and literature tests from the 2015 scores: Mars, Moniteau and Slippery Rock.

Despite the small drop in those two tests, the Moniteau district showed serious improvement on the biology exam.

In 2015, only 25.58 percent of Moniteau’s 11th-grade students scored advanced or proficient. This year, Moniteau students scored 78.9 percent advanced and proficient.

Multiple attempts to contact high school principals Lance Fox and Todd Amsler for information on how the district achieved such an increase were unsuccessful.

While Mars dipped slightly — about 1 percent — Superintendent Wesley Shipley said he wasn’t too concerned.

“When you have changes that small, that could be one student or the way scores are rounded up or down,” he said. “It kind of all falls within the standard of error. A change like that, going up or down 1 percent doesn’t get me real excited. When you start to fall 5 or 10 percent, then I would get concerned.”

What follows are the percentages of students who scored advanced and proficient on all three subject exams for each district. The state average percentages for advanced and proficient are: algebra I, 68.2 percent; literature, 76.8 percent; and biology, 65.8 percent.

Butler

Algebra I: 84.6 percent

Literature: 88.3 percent

Biology: 79.9 percent

Karns City

Algebra I: 77.2 percent

Literature: 83.6 percent

Biology: 77.7 percent

Mars

Algebra I: 87.6 percent

Literature: 94.1 percent

Biology: 90.9 percent

Moniteau

Algebra I: 75.5 percent

Literature: 80.7 percent

Biology: 78.9 percent

Seneca Valley

Algebra I: 79.3 percent

Literature: 82 percent

Biology: 83 percent

Slippery Rock

Algebra I: 86.4 percent

Literature: 90.6 percent

Biology: 88.3 percent

South Butler

Algebra I: 88.3 percent

Literature: 88.6 percent

Biology: 86.9 percent