Amid a pandemic that greatly disrupted traditional methods of education, Dave Murphy, director of assessment and accountability for the Monroe County School District, reported to the school board on June 22 that the percentage of third-grade students reading at grade level had dropped by 11.4% from 2019 levels. Murphy said the drop was âsignificantâ but also that he does not âthink it was as bad as some people fear,â being that some drop in academic performance may have been expected due to remote learning and other challenges of pandemic schooling. Some schools had larger drops in reading levels than others. The largest was a 45.5% drop seen at the May Sands Montessori School in Key West, which had 100% of its third-graders reading at grade level pre-pandemic. Murphy noted that May Sands only has 11 third grade students and the small size skews the data.