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LSG presentation: kindergarten MAP gains; first grade lags as board weighs interventions and capacity
Summary
District LSG presenters reported middle-of-year MAP reading results showing kinder gains and a district-wide dip from kindergarten to first grade. Trustees asked for focused interventions, enrollment-capacity data, and follow-up monitoring.
WESLACO — At the March meeting of the WESLACO ISD Board of Trustees district staff presented middle-of-year NWEA MAP reading results and discussed classroom interventions and instructional priorities under the Lone Star Governance framework.
Miss Solana, the district presenter on Lone Star Governance monitoring, said WESLACO set a 60th-percentile district goal on MAP to align with state expectations (the board’s HB 3 goal) and described the middle‑of‑year status: kindergarten districtwide was at 54 percent (target 58), first grade was at 35 percent (target 46), and second grade at 39 percent (target 46). "If you're at the sixtieth percentile, you're already at the low meets performance level," Solana said.
Why it matters: The MAP diagnostic is used to project STAAR performance and to set board-level student outcome goals. Trustees said the kindergarten gains were encouraging but expressed concern about the steep drop from kindergarten to first grade and asked for districtwide fidelity to high-quality instructional materials and consistent interventions.
What staff said and trustee questions - Instructional approach: Solana and other staff credited blended learning and differentiation in kindergarten for the stronger results in that grade and said the district is rolling those strategies into first grade next year while training second-grade teachers. “We are seeing the benefits of that,” Solana said of blended instruction in kindergarten. - Accommodations and special populations: Trustee Jackie Sustaita pressed staff on special education scores, noting special-ed subgroups showed larger gaps by grade; Solana said the district is reviewing screening, accommodations, and tier 1 fidelity and added that special populations were part of the district targets set this year. - Enrollment and capacity: Trustees asked for a presentation showing enrollment, campus capacity and transfer impacts; Trustee Mark Delos Santos said overcrowding at some campuses creates instructional equity concerns and asked that the district present staffing and capacity thresholds in a future workshop.
Trustees requested follow-up reporting on end-of-year MAP administrations and a more detailed, campus-level account of which interventions are being used and which appear most effective.
Ending: District staff said they will present end-of-year MAP results and further analyses to the board in coming months and to continue training teachers on the adopted instructional materials.
