Denver Public School Board members both praised, and expressed concern for, its students’ performance on the Colorado Measures of Academic Success at its meeting Wednesday.

Board of Education directors walked a fine line during their regular meeting between praising students for the district’s overall gains while pushing Superintendent Alex Marrero to do more to raise proficiency in math and English and close the stubborn achievement gap.

“This isn’t enough — and it is fantastic news,” Director Scott Esserman said.

Released a week ago, the Colorado Measures of Academic Success (CMAS) — the state’s standardized test — showed students have returned to, or surpassed, pre-pandemic levels for all subjects and grades. There were two exceptions for Colorado students: fourth-grade English, and English and math in eighth grade.

Denver students didn’t hit that mark, but were close to regaining pre-pandemic performance levels in English, where test scores are just 0.8% below 2019. In math, 32.9% of students met expectations this year, compared with 32.7% in 2019.

“We have to continue to get better and getting better,” said Simone Wright, the district’s chief of academics.

Because of the learning loss that came with the COVID-19 pandemic with school closures, educators have used the 2019 test scores as a benchmark.

But with fewer than half of students hitting the English benchmark in 2019 and 32.7% in math, the CMAS results make clear most students are falling short of state standards.

In 2019, 55.5% of students across Colorado did not meet state expectations in English and 67.3% in math.

How can educators celebrate that, Marrero told the board, adding that raising student achievement is “not easy work.”

“There is no quick fix,” Marrero said.

In other news, the board approved advancing a slew of policy governance measures from defining the president’s role and board job description to committee principals and monitoring the superintendent’s performance.

“This is really an essential policy,” Esserman said, adding that the board should seek community input.

The board has weathered criticism of its oversight of Marrero, including the early extension of his contract in May.

Esserman added: “It’s incumbent on all seven of us to get this right.”