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Tuscaloosa City Schools reports midyear gains on Pathways to Proficiency assessments
Summary
District staff presented midyear benchmark results showing increases in proficiency on district-aligned Pathways to Proficiency assessments, with district-wide proficiency up from 37% to 43% at midyear; schools and grade bands show mixed progress and some pacing discrepancies.
The Tuscaloosa City Schools Board of Education received midyear assessment results on the Pathways to Proficiency benchmark during its meeting. Doctor Fulton, a district staff member, told the board the district is at 43% proficiency midyear compared with 37% at the same point last year.
The midyear assessment, given in December, measures student performance on grade-level state standards (for grades 3–8) and ACT-aligned standards for 11th grade. "Every school grades 3 through 8 had to take it, with ACAP standards, and eleventh grade ... was ACT standards," Doctor Fulton said. The district uses the results as a "temperature check" to identify standards already taught and areas that need targeted instruction before spring state assessments.
School-level results varied. Fulton highlighted several elementary schools that showed notable midyear gains, naming Arcadia (increase in students at the "2" band from 29% to 37%), MLK (24% to 30% midyear) and Marquette Poorey and Whitlam Forest as identified for improvement or recognition. Fulton said teachers use "stepping stones" and a standards-attainment chart to track which students have mastered particular standards and to guide interventions.
Board members pressed for clarifications about how midyear percentages are calculated. Doctor Fulton said elementary percentages represent the average of grades 3–5 within a building, middle-school figures are an average for grades 6–8, and high-school figures reflect eleventh grade only. Fulton also explained that some schools following alternative pacing guides (for example, schools using an "A-plus" program) may show lower midyear scores because certain standards had not yet been taught; end-of-year testing will align on all standards.
Fulton said math and ELA trends are converging: districtwide proficiency was about 46% in ELA and 43% in math at midyear. He emphasized the numbers are a midyear snapshot and that February and April assessments will give fuller pictures after additional instruction and pacing adjustments. Fulton said the district will provide more detailed grade-level and teacher-level progression data to board members on request.
The presentation closed with an invitation to a future data session for deeper analysis; board members were told that staff will return with more detailed growth and intervention data in a follow-up session.
