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Bay Shore reports steady midyear I‑Ready growth, concerns remain in middle grades
Summary
District staff presented a winter-to-winter I‑Ready midyear analysis showing steady growth overall but higher shares of students below grade level in seventh and eighth grades; presenters and board members discussed cohort tracking, ELL inclusion and alignment with middle‑school curriculum.
Bay Shore Union Free School District officials reported a midyear review of I‑Ready diagnostic results showing steady year-over-year growth overall, while middle school grade bands continue to show higher shares of students below grade level.
The presentation, delivered by district staff, reviewed winter-to-winter comparisons spanning the 2022–23 through 2024–25 administrations. Staff said the report includes only students who took both the fall and winter diagnostics in the same year; kindergarten through grade 2 use a separate assessment for reading, so reading results in the I‑Ready set cover grades 3–8 only.
District staff said the math diagnostic had broader participation than the reading diagnostic because of that grade-range difference, and that nationally normed comparisons show Bay Shore close to state and national norms in many grade bands. Staff highlighted that midyear roughly 27% of tested students were already at grade-level, about 50% were progressing toward grade level, and roughly a quarter remained below grade level midyear. Presenters emphasized the distinction between placement and growth: students who start behind often show higher relative growth but still need accelerated support to reach grade-level benchmarks.
Board members asked about trends in middle school. Staff said the higher percentages of students two to three grade levels below are a pattern commonly seen in seventh and eighth grades statewide and nationally; they cited changes in instructional structure, differences in curriculum alignment with I‑Ready in secondary grades, and reduced student motivation in later grades as possible factors. Staff also noted the I‑Ready assessment is adaptive, meaning question difficulty shifts based on responses.
Board members requested more cohort-style reporting that follows the same group of students over time and asked for disaggregations by subgroup (for example, English-language learners). Staff said the district can produce cohort comparisons when students have taken all administrations required for inclusion and that some students who are very new to the country and to English may appear in the dataset if they took both fall and winter diagnostics.
The board discussed public-facing school performance metrics, including AP/IB participation and third‑party rankings, and several members urged the administration to emphasize growth measures in communications to better reflect instructional progress. Staff said the district will provide more cohort and subgroup breakdowns and return with additional slides and normative comparisons at a future meeting.
No formal action was taken; the item was presented for information and discussion.
