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District adopts CAPT for grades 7–12 to replace discontinued RI; rollout starts this spring
Summary
Central York SD will deploy the CAPT diagnostic for grades 7–12, using three core subtests initially (sentence processing, reading efficiency, reading comprehension) to produce Lexile scores and national percentiles; high school testing has already occurred and middle-school testing is imminent.
Central York SD staff told the curriculum committee on May 5 that the district will adopt the CAPT assessment for grades 7–12 after the previous RI/SRI reading assessment became unavailable through Scholastic.
A district staff member and the high-school reading specialist evaluated alternatives and selected CAPT, which yields Lexile measures and national-percentile scores and includes six subtests in total. "We found what I consider to be a remarkably better tool. And it is called the CAPT assessment," the presenter said. At the secondary level the district will initially administer three subtests—sentence processing, reading efficiency and reading comprehension—that together drive the Lexile score.
Staff said the district has already given CAPT at the high school this spring and is scheduling it for seventh and eighth graders in the next two weeks. The tool provides student- and parent-facing reports, a dashboard for district analysis, and a large data file the district can upload to its data warehouse. Staff said the instrument is fully online, timed, and scored for teachers to support efficiency.
The presenter said CAPT includes additional subtests (word recognition and decoding, vocabulary, morphology) that can be given for students who do not meet tier‑1 benchmarks so interventions can be targeted to the precise skill areas. The district hopes the additional subtests will help select appropriate interventions beyond large-group programs such as Read 180.
Committee members asked about accommodations and online testing. Staff said the assessment supports accommodations, including a text-to-speech option and three accommodation levels for setting grade-level complexity; for deeper or unique accommodations the district follows written IEP procedures and seeks the special exceptions required by the guidelines. Staff described a new "unique accommodation" for ELA that allows the ELA portion to be read to a student when appropriate and documented in the IEP.
No formal board vote was recorded; the item was presented as a staff update about assessment selection and near-term rollout. Staff said it will compile and report CAPT results to the board and include the data in future strategic-plan reporting.
