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Oldham County presents multi-year gains, targets middle-school gaps and TSI support
Summary
District officials presented multi-year K-12 achievement data, I-Ready diagnostic results and a targeted plan to exit Oldham County Middle School from Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI) status.
Dr. Smith, a district administrator, told the Oldham County Board of Education that the district has seen sustained, multi-year gains in math and reading since 2021, but said some middle-school cohorts and subgroups require closer attention.
“One of my favorite board meetings of the entire year because we get to look at data together,” Dr. Smith said as she introduced Kentucky Academic Standards (KSA) results and local I-Ready diagnostic findings.
The presentation showed cohort math proficiency gains reported by Dr. Smith: third graders who were at 45% proficiency in 2021 rose to 59% the next year and to 64% in 2023; district middle-school sixth-grade proficiency rose from 40% in 2021 to 60% in 2024, a 20-point jump. Dr. Smith highlighted that district leaders track students who score in the “novice” range and said the elementary novice rate moved from 17% in 2021 to 16% in the most recent year, while some eighth-grade novice counts rose.
Dr. Smith also summarized I-Ready fall diagnostic results administered to 7,890 students and described how the district interprets the vendor’s bands: yellow indicates “one grade level below” current standards mastery, not an absolute failure, and the district intends to reduce that cohort across the year through targeted instruction and interventions.
On federal/state accountability flags, Dr. Smith said Oldham County Middle School is currently in TSI status for supporting students with disabilities. She described a plan the district will run this year to address the TSI designation that includes co-teaching supports, two retired teachers assigned to classrooms, weekly data-review meetings through the winter, and an ECS team cohort that pairs general-education and special-education teachers to adopt instructional strategies.
Board members asked for comparisons with similarly sized districts; Dr. Smith said she visited Scott County and plans to visit Madison and Laurel counties to observe effective high-school and elementary practices, respectively. Dr. Smith emphasized the district will continue to disaggregate results by subgroup — for example, African American students and students identifying as two or more races — and monitor shifts in small subgroup counts to avoid overinterpreting fluctuations.
District leaders noted particular strengths and weaknesses in other assessed areas: writing proficiency jumped notably (Dr. Smith cited a 70% proficiency figure and an 11-point improvement in combined writing for middle and high school), while elementary science proficiency declined slightly districtwide to 34% and middle school to 33%.
The presentation closed with an explanation of how the district will use I-Ready teacher toolkits and regular PLC work to reduce the fall “yellow” cohort through lessons and targeted instruction.
