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…