On the same day Maryland state education officials released student test scores on reading, math and science, officials said they’re already working on how they can improve instruction across the state.

The efforts are, in part, a response to the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program results, tests that are given each year.

Tenette Smith, chief academic officer for the Maryland State Department of Education, told the state school board Tuesday that the state is working with local school districts to provide them with support systems, “high quality instructional materials” and professional learning and coaching.

One of the programs Smith outlined is the Maryland School Leadership Academy.

“It’s a statewide leadership network that supports all of these three priorities,” Smith said. “This academy aims to develop a pipeline of transformational leaders across five regions.”

So far, 500 school leaders — principals, assistant principals and those school staffers who want to get into school leadership — have gone through the training academy. Applications are being taken for the next cohort, Smith said.

Smith said the Maryland State Department of Education is also releasing “our parent guides for student literacy supports, which are now available online.”

The guides are intended to “support parents who are looking for resources and tools to use to help their kiddos.”

Trish Brennan-Gac, executive director of Maryland Reads, a statewide organization that advocates for reading improvements in schools, said, “We are in a reading crisis, and our reading proficiency rates are nowhere where we need them to be.”

But she said that Maryland State Superintendent Carey Wright has been moving the state in the right direction.

“We have a superintendent who is rebuilding our agency. This is a process we are in the middle of — we are not done rebuilding our systems, and yet we are seeing positive change,” Brennan-Gac said.