Burnsville Public School District staff reported to the Board of Education on March 27, 2025, on academic achievement gaps, discipline disproportionality and outcomes for multilingual learners.

The presentation, led by Director of Educational Equity Isis Buchanan with Amina Aftedal, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment, and Amy Petrowski, director of student support services, said statewide Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment (MCA) proficiency levels continue to show disparities by race and ethnicity while local-year growth measures show more even gains across groups.

"The Minnesota comprehensive assessments are a measure of how the system of curriculum and instruction are effectively serving students," Buchanan said. She added that growth data from local reading and math assessments show a "more uniform impact of typical and aggressive growth among the different groups of students," a contrast with point-in-time MCA proficiency snapshots.

The staff said the district is investing in targeted literacy work (including intensive literacy training for more than 350 staff), expanded middle school interventions and implementation of foundational literacy K–5. Middle-school math interventions were expanded districtwide via an online program for grades 6–8 and a review of math instructional materials is underway to prepare for new state standards.

On discipline, staff reported that during the first semester of the 2024–25 school year the district’s suspension disproportionality rate was 60 percent, meaning staff framed BIPOC students as 60 percent more likely to be suspended than white peers; presenters said this is a reduction from prior years. Staff credited multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS), positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) rollout, expanded board-certified behavior analysts and non-exclusionary discipline work for the improvement.

"These initiatives are actively reducing suspensions, improving student support, and fostering equitable learning environment," Buchanan said.

Multilingual learner (ML) enrollment was reported at 1,824 students, roughly 24 percent of the district population, with slight declines at elementary and increases in middle and high school. Staff said the district is seeing more students at entering and emerging English levels than in some prior years; that pattern affects programming needs for English acquisition services.

Buchanan and Aftedal pointed to a small increase in students meeting state English-acquisition growth targets (27 percent previously; 28.4 percent reported for the 2023–24 year in district materials) and noted an increase in students pursuing a state seal of biliteracy (10 students in 2022 to 33 in 2024).

Board members pressed for technical clarifications: Director Mickelson asked whether the suspension disproportionality figure is weighted by population; staff answered it is a straight count where a student suspended once counts once. Trustees also confirmed that MCA proficiency percentages treat students who declined to test as non-proficient; staff noted elementary participation exceeds 95 percent, middle school participation generally exceeds 90 percent and high school participation is in the 80s for the tested grades.

The presentation closed with staff listing continuing actions: MTSS implementation (year three in the district), professional development on cultural proficiency and equity-driven discipline work, deployment of behavioral analysts and targeted interventions intended to reduce exclusionary discipline and support multilingual student growth.