Smithville R-II discusses enrollment gains, teacher retention and i-Ready–MAP correlations

Smithville R-II district leaders reported a net increase of 28 students and presented analysis tying i-Ready diagnostic results to state MAP outcomes during a board meeting. The superintendent and district instructional staff outlined teacher retention figures, professional learning community (PLC) structures and next steps for using assessment data to target instruction.

The superintendent (name not specified) told board members the district is up 28 students on the state count day of 09/24/25 and that the district’s kindergarten class is the smallest since June 2007. He said the district is seeing growth at the elementary level even as enrollment at the high school level has declined, and that the district will monitor short-term trends rather than projecting far into the future.

District academic staff said the district currently has five first-year teachers (four elementary, one middle) and 10 second-year teachers (nine elementary, one middle). The staff highlighted ongoing onboarding labeled “best practice workshops” for first- and second-year teachers and said the lower count of brand-new hires indicates improved retention.

Instructional coordinators Dr. Carrie Chambers and Angie Sanders explained that PLCs remain a central strategy. Elementary teams maintain building-level data trackers for every student; middle-school teams meet weekly; high-school PLCs meet on protected cycles tied to end-of-course (EOC) content. The district uses six scheduled professional-development work days to provide meeting time for teachers who cannot meet daily.

District staff described the i-Ready diagnostic (K–8) as a criterion-referenced tool given three times per year within windows set by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). Staff reported they ran correlation analyses between students’ spring i-Ready placement and MAP outcomes and found Pearson correlations in the 0.7–0.8 range for many grade levels; for the district this was described as a “strong” relationship. The presentation included conditional probability ranges the district observed: for students scoring “mid or above” on spring i-Ready, the chance of scoring advanced on MAP ranged roughly 53.1%–84.1% depending on grade and subject; for students “on grade level” ranges showed broader variation (about 45.8%–75% in some cells); students one grade level below tended to fall into basic or below-basic MAP bands, and students two to three grade levels below i-Ready frequently scored below basic on MAP in math.

Staff cautioned that some variance may reflect differences in depth or complexity between assessments, curriculum pacing gaps, or student motivation during late‑year testing. They said correlational results will be tracked over time and used to refine reteaching, regrouping and PLC actions answering the PLC questions: what should students know, how do we know, what to do if they do, and what to do if they do not.

The district’s next analytical steps include comparing i-Ready expected growth and stretch-growth parameters to actual student movement on scale scores and continuing building-level goals tied to these measures. District staff said each building principal has a goal based on the data and that principals are using the trackers to identify “bubble” students for targeted conferences and interventions.

Details clarified during the presentation: i-Ready is administered three times per year in K–8 on DESE windows; the district used 09/24/25 as its state count day for the enrollment snapshot; the kindergarten cohort is the smallest since 06/2007; the district reported five first-year teachers and 10 second-year teachers; Pearson correlations observed across grades were approximately 0.7–0.8.

District staff said the high school uses its own tools for EOC-tested courses because i-Ready stops at grade 8; the high school’s PLCs and assessments are intended to provide a parallel diagnostic system for grades 9–12. Staff indicated further analyses will be run and reported back to the board.

Board members and staff did not take formal action on these items during the meeting; the presentation was described as an update and a basis for continued analysis and targeted instructional work.