RALEIGH,Lakshmi Finance Center N.C. (AP) — North Carolina’s public school students made small performance gains on standardized tests during the past school year, officials announced Wednesday. The proficiency levels are inching closer to percentages reached before the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered classrooms and led to remote learning.

The Department of Public Instruction released figures showing 54.2% of students were proficient on state exams during the 2023-24 school year, compared to 53.6% during the 2022-23 school year, The News & Observer of Raleigh reported.

The passing rate remains below the 58.8% proficiency rate during the 2018-19 school year. The first full school year during the pandemic — 2020-21 — the rate was just 45.4%, according to the newspaper.

State educators have said since 2022 that it would take time — perhaps four or five years — to rebound fully from the era of learning loss during the pandemic.

“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done,” state schools Superintendent Catherine Truitt said as the results were released at the State Board of Education meeting.

In other calculations, more individual schools met growth expectations on state exams and fewer schools were labeled as low-performing. The state uses an A-to-F grading system on schools that is largely based on proficiency rates. The state’s four-year graduation rate also ticked up slightly from 86.5% during the 2022-23 school year to 86.9% this past year, according to a department release.

Schools have spent hundreds of millions of dollars the last few years on learning recovery efforts, including tutoring and after school and summer programming. Temporary federal money toward these efforts dries up later this month, WRAL-TV reported.

Tammy Howard with the Department of Public Instruction’s accountability and testing office estimated the state is about 97% returned to pre-pandemic levels, according to the station.

“While test grades and letter outcomes cannot tell us everything we need to know about school and student success, North Carolina continues to see growth for most grades and subjects,” Howard said in the department’s release. “This is something to be proud of.”

Looking at grade-level tests, the passing rate on the third-grade reading exam was 48.6% during the 2023-24 school year, compared to 47.8% the previous year.

State leaders have said they expected early-literacy skills to improve over time as teachers become more comfortable with new reading instruction training that stresses phonics. All of the state’s elementary teachers completed the 160 hours of training this year, The News & Observer reported.

The results were released two months before voters decide who they want to succeed Truitt as superintendent. Democrat Maurice “Mo” Green and Republican Michele Morrow will be on the ballot. Morrow defeated Truitt in the March primary.