Richfield superintendent outlines back-to-school priorities, sets draft goal to raise graduation rate to 90%

Richfield Superintendent Steve Unoske gave a fall “back to school” update and presented a first draft of his 2025–26 goals at the Richfield School Board meeting on Sept. 2, focusing on literacy training under the READ Act, expanded progress monitoring, modest gains on state assessments and a district graduation-rate target of 90 percent.

Unoske told the board the district staggered secondary and elementary start dates to smooth transportation and welcomed new curriculum rollouts: Benchmark Advance/Adelante at elementary and StudySync for secondary English language arts, with about “30 percent” of secondary materials supplemented locally “to make sure that our curriculum is culturally responsive,” he said. He described district-wide implementation of the READ Act literacy training (referred to in the meeting as letters training) and said phase 1 is complete for several staff groups and phase 2 will extend to secondary staff.

The superintendent said the district is pushing more frequent progress monitoring…