During a presentation to the Sun Prairie Area School District school board, district leaders reported mixed literacy outcomes for the 2024–25 school year and laid out actions the district has taken and plans to meet Wisconsin’s Act 20 early literacy requirements.

Assistant Superintendent Stephanie Leonard said kindergarten and first-grade benchmark scores were “relatively flat” this year while the grades 2–5 literacy composite rose 7.3 percent from fall to spring. "Every child needs to read and read well," Leonard said, framing the district’s priorities as it moves into the next school year.

The presentation said middle school reading performance improved overall by 3.9 percent from fall to spring; staff noted Black middle school students gained 6.3 percent and students with individualized education programs gained 7.2 percent, which the presenters described as gap-closing progress. By contrast, 11th-grade ACT reading scores showed a 1.1 percent decline overall; the presenters said students with disabilities posted a 5.5 percent increase on the ACT reading benchmark.

District staff identified specific assessment and curriculum changes already in place and planned to address weak areas. The district adopted the Amplify CKLA curriculum last fall and a separate program for its dual-language immersion classrooms (identified in the presentation as "Camino's"). Staff now give a universal reading screener from AIMSweb Plus three times per year for early grades and use NextPath to communicate results to parents within the 15-day window required by Act 20. Rick Miller, director of elementary education, said, "We shouldn't wait. We should jump in and get our systems in place," describing the district’s early start on personalized reading plans and diagnostic follow-up when students score at or below the 25th percentile on the screeners.

Presenters gave several next steps the district will pursue in 2025–26: require each site to set a problem of practice focused on either accelerating outcomes for Black students or for students with identified disabilities; expand biliteracy and dual-language immersion programming to second grade at all nine elementary sites; provide targeted professional development on letter naming and small-group instruction for 4K and 5K teachers; deepen Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions; and design common formative and summative literacy assessments across the district to ensure consistent measurement.

On compliance and implementation required by Act 20, staff said the district has posted an early literacy remediation plan and the district’s broader Act 20 implementation plan to its website, provided approved Cox Campus training for K–5 teachers (with district time allocated for training), and trained site leaders, instructional coaches and reading teachers with six sessions during the school year. The district is still drafting a third-to-fourth-grade promotion policy aligned to the Department of Public Instruction model policy and plans to present that policy to the school board before July to meet the statute’s timeline, the presenters said.

The presentation also described a partial reimbursement process for instructional materials: the district submitted a claim approaching $650,000 to the state’s Joint Committee on Finance and said it may receive up to 50 percent back if the committee releases those funds. The presenters characterized that reimbursement as limited to universal, consumable materials for 4K through third grade and said any reimbursement would cover only a portion of the district’s spending on the CKLA curriculum.

Presenters noted other data caveats and timing: preACT spring results for grades 9–10 had been administered on April 8 and were expected to be available May 30, and the district’s 2024–25 official scorecard data will be published in the fall. District staff said principals and educators are reviewing school-by-school disaggregated AIMSweb data to identify practices at higher-performing schools that could be scaled across the district.

The presentation included several quantitative details the district plans to use in monitoring and reporting: AIMSweb benchmarking is administered three times per year and uses percentile bands (for example, the 40th percentile is a target line); the district reported a 7.3 percent increase in the grades 2–5 literacy composite, a 3.9 percent overall gain in middle school reading, a 6.3 percent gain for Black middle school students, a 7.2 percent gain for middle school students with IEPs, and a 1.1 percent decline in 11th-grade ACT reading overall. Staff emphasized targeted professional development and small-group planning as near-term remedies for the K–1 flat results, specifically calling out the need for faster letter-naming fluency on the timed screener.

The presenters who took part in the briefing and whose remarks are attributed in this report were: Stephanie Leonard, assistant superintendent for teaching, learning and equity; Dr. Sarah Chia Clarity, director of secondary (presentation slides and remarks identified this title); Rick Miller, director of elementary education; and Deb Larson, K–12 literacy coordinator. The presenters described the work as continuing, with some elements—such as the reimbursement decision and the third-to-fourth-grade promotion policy—still pending action by external authorities or the school board.

The district invited further discussion at the school board meeting and provided links on its website to the district scorecard, Act 20 materials, and curriculum modification notes for elementary CKLA implementation.