Kennewick schools report mixed results in early literacy and math; board urges faster progress

The Kennewick School District presented spring assessment results to the Board of Directors that show some students making measurable growth in early literacy while substantial shares remain below grade level, particularly by second grade and across several middle-school math cohorts. The presentation, led by Alyssa Saint Hilaire, director of assessment and instruction, combined STAR early-literacy growth indicators for kindergarten through second grade with Smarter Balanced results for English language arts and math across grade levels.

District officials said the STAR data measured growth as students moving from lower to higher intervention tiers (for example, from “urgent” to “intervention” or from “intervention” to “on watch”). Saint Hilaire noted that last year was the first year the district administered STAR Early Literacy and STAR Reading to all students, so she described the results as baseline data. She told the board: “This is a growth target. So these students moved either from urgent to intervention, intervention to on watch, or on watch to at or above benchmark.”

Why it matters: board members and staff repeatedly said early grades are pivotal because reading by the end of third grade…