Cherry Creek board hears fall assessment baseline; district launches PLC and 15-day instructional plan

The Cherry Creek School District No. 5 Board of Education on Oct. 20 reviewed first-window assessment results for the 2025–26 school year and discussed steps to use the data to target instruction, particularly for multilingual learners, while approving the evening’s consent agenda.

The presentation of the district’s aligned assessment system showed fall baseline STAR-screening results across the district’s 67 schools and prompted discussion of professional learning community (PLC) work, a “15-day challenge” unit-planning initiative and options to assess multilingual students in their native language.

Why it matters: district leaders said the results inform where to apply coaching, instructional resources and interventions to meet the board’s stated goal of universal grade-level literacy by 2030. Trustees and staff highlighted large concentrations of multilingual learners in certain feeders and said the district will use PLCs and targeted professional development to reallocate supports.

Dr. Diana Roybal, assistant superintendent of performance improvement, told the board the fall STAR screens are an “entry-level” baseline taken in the second or third week of school and that they include students new to the district and hundreds of multilingual learners. She said the assessment is a universal screener that helps teachers plan tiered instruction and that individual schools will use the results to build action steps for classroom and school-level supports.

"This data is a baseline of information of where we are and where we need to be by the end of the year," Roybal said. She added the district expects each school to use the data in collaborative teams to create targeted supports.

Norm (staff member), who presented results with Roybal, described the STAR test as a computer-adaptive screener used in three windows (fall, winter in December and spring in April) and explained the district’s instructional benchmark bands. He said roughly one-quarter of students in early grades first-window screens fell into an “intensive” support category and an additional 40–50% were at strategic or grade-level categories, stressing that the fall screen is an early indicator needing school-level context.

The board received disaggregated results by race/ethnicity and feeder patterns. Presenters said multilingual learners score disproportionately in the intensive category on the fall screen — a group they estimated at about 70–80% of multilingual learners — and that about 60% of those students are Hispanic. The Overland feeder was singled out: presenters reported roughly 42.7% of students in that feeder are identified as multilingual learners, a much higher share than most feeders (which range from about 10% to 18%).

Instructional response and professional learning: Toby Aratola (instructional support staff) outlined district efforts to move from isolated improvement efforts to coordinated PLC work and described two major implementation levers: sustained PLC professional development and a districtwide “15-day challenge” unit-planning process. He said the district offered eight full professional development days this year (up from four last year) for coaches and principals and that every pre-K through fifth-grade teacher has been trained in the 15‑day unit planning work.

Aratola described three core PLC ideas — focus on learning, collaborative culture and focus on results — and the four guiding PLC questions (what students should know, how we know they learned it, what adults do when students don’t learn it, and what adults do when students already know it). He said the 15-day challenge will be applied to reading initially and then extended to science and math, with classroom-level supports and cross-department collaboration (special education, multilingual staff, coaches).

On instructional effect sizes, presenters cited John Hattie’s research to argue for collective teacher efficacy: an effect-size figure of about 1.34 for collective teacher efficacy and 1.29 for teacher expectations were cited as research-based rationales for investing in teacher collaboration and practice change.

Multilingual learner concerns and testing options: Trustees pressed staff about how the district assesses multilingual students. Director Bates asked whether the STAR screener is administered only in English. Roybal and staff said the district currently administers STAR in English but is exploring the option of using the Spanish version of the assessment in districts where appropriate; staff noted many districts in Colorado do use the Spanish STAR screener to measure literacy in students’ native language and then cross-map growth to English-language objectives.

Staff noted that measuring literacy in a student’s native language can give a clearer picture of academic skills apart from English-language acquisition and said the district’s English Language Services (ELS) co-teachers are focusing this year on strengthening literacy instruction for multilingual learners.

Use of results to allocate resources: Trustees asked how the PLC and data work will change resource allocation. Staff said the goal is equitable (not equal) allocation: district teams will use feeder- and school-level data to identify the combination of supports a school needs — coaching, consultants, restorative-practices supports or additional interventions — rather than automatically adding headcount. The board discussed sharing successful school practices across the district.

Public comment and staff recognition: Carly Holliday, president of the Cherry Creek Education Association, addressed the board in support of a union–district collaboration on educator well-being. Holliday said the association and the district negotiated a memorandum of understanding to study and mitigate educator burnout and praised a partnership with Educators Thriving to deliver training for principals and staff.

Votes at a glance: - Motion to approve the Oct. 20, 2025 agenda — approved (roll call: Directors Allen, Bates, Egan, Futrell, Garland voted aye). - Motion to approve minutes as listed on the Oct. 20, 2025 agenda — approved (roll call: Directors Allen, Bates, Egan, Boutro, Garland voted aye). - Motion to approve the consent agenda, resolutions 25.10.1 through 25.10.9 — approved (roll call: Directors Allen, Bates, Egan, Futrell, Garland voted aye).

What’s next: staff told the board winter and spring assessment windows will provide growth data and that schools will continue PLC implementation and the 15-day unit-planning rollout. Staff also said they will continue exploring Spanish-language screening and related supports for multilingual learners and will return with school- and feeder-level action plans informed by the fall baseline.

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