Powell High School students continue to outperform state averages in multiple academic areas, according to the most recent date presented at the October school board meeting. Principal Tim Wormald discussed WYTOPP scores, ACT scores and graduation rates. 

In WYTOPP testing, otherwise known as the Wyoming Test of Proficiency and Progress, Powell High School continued to show strong scores, as characterized in years past. 

“Our WYTOPP scores were strong, really pretty consistent to where they have been in years past,” Principal Tim Wormald said. ”Of course, I like to see that we’re scoring above the state average on those tests. We were up a little bit in some and down a little bit in others. But for the most part, our WYTOPP scores have remained strong.”

The 9th grade English Language Arts (ELA) scored a 65, which is above the state average of 55, and the 10th grade ELA scored a 58, sitting 15 points above the state average. 

The 9th grade math scores were also 15 points above the state average of 43. 10th grade received a 56, over the state average of 43. 

10th graders also take the science portion of the test, and they received a 62, over the state average of 49. 

While WYTOPP scores were consistent with previous years, district ACT scores have seen promising improvement. The current senior class averaged 1.1 points higher than the class of 2025. 

“Last spring, our senior class did really well with the ACT,” Mr. Wormald said. “As you can see, our numbers increase across the board. Having an average composite score of a 20.3 is really pretty impressive, so they did a great job with that.” 

For their composite scores, Powell High School scored 1.6 points higher than the statewide average of 18.7 points. 

For 4-year, on-time graduation rates, Powell remains above the state average, graduating 90.1% of students in the 2023-2024 class. 

This is an uptick since the previous year, which had an 88.8% graduation rate. Mr. Wormald discussed how one or two students can make a difference in that number. 

“We’ve done a lot of things over the last few years to try to encourage students to continue to move forward toward graduation,” he said. “That idea of earning credits is a struggle for some students, just in terms of their attendance or their motivation… we put a lot into trying to keep those students moving forward. And I think we’re seeing that pay off. Our percentage of graduates is certainly higher than the state average, and so we’re proud of that. [However, it is] still always an area of focus for us: we want to keep those students in school and moving toward graduation.”