Provo School Board reviews end-of-year data, highlights gaps in growth and special-education performance

The Provo City School Board on Tuesday reviewed the district's end-of-year assessment data and was told that overall growth rates are holding near the 50th percentile while achievement levels remain largely unchanged, meaning the district must produce higher-than-average growth to raise proficiency levels.

Superintendent Wendy Dow summarized the central findings: "When we're just what we're doing is we're making a year's worth of growth in a year, but that's not what we need if we're gonna move those proficiency levels. It has to be higher than that." She told the board the district will focus on identifying and replicating practices from schools that showed outsized growth.

Why it matters: district leaders said steady growth at the 50th percentile will maintain students' current performance but will not close proficiency gaps. The board heard that several schoolsincluding Timpanogos, Westridge, Tempe View and Shorelineproduced growth in the 60th to 80th percentiles and that those teams' practices should be studied and replicated across the district.

Key details presented: district assessment staff compared NWEA scores with state summative tests (RISE and Aspire Plus) and ACT results. Examples shown to the board included an NWEA predictor score of 62 that forecasted a 45% pass rate on RISE and an actual pass rate of 44.8%; a science predictor score of 67 predicted 50% and actual pass rate was 49.6%; and for Aspire Plus a predictor of 79 forecasted 37.6% while actual was 31.3%.

Special education: Nate Edelson, the district's special education director, said the gap between students with disabilities and their peers is narrow in elementary grades but widens at secondary levels. "We're starting to see some of our special education students making no growth," he said, and urged a shift from compliance-focused work to direct instructional support in classrooms.

Concurrent enrollment and postsecondary readiness: district staff reported a large increase in students taking concurrent-enrollment (CE) college courses through UVU, noting almost 1,200 students took roughly 2,900 CE courses this year, producing an estimated tuition savings of about $2,200,000. Board members discussed a proposed UVU pilot to replace some high-school math courses with CE equivalents so students can complete core college math requirements before graduation.

Board direction and next steps: board members and staff emphasized examining teams at high-growth schools to determine replicable practices, expanding professional learning community (PLC) time for teacher collaboration, and building better data dashboards so classroom teachers can see incoming student profiles before day one. Dow said the district will produce a strategic-plan dashboard once state data are finalized later in the calendar year.

Board reaction: board members asked for clearer timelines and for district staff to translate the data into classroom-level guidance. Several members urged more emphasis on attendance and tiered interventions for students below benchmark.

Ending: District staff asked board members to schedule follow-up data dives with school leaders and data teams; staff said detailed spreadsheets and supporting analyses would be available for board review and that a proposed UVU concurrent-enrollment expansion would be brought forward for consideration.