Vancouver School District details high-school progress monitoring, interim assessment rollout

Vancouver School District staff told the school board during a Jan. 28 study session that the district is rolling out interim assessment blocks (IABs) for grades 9–12 and is using those results, together with professional learning, MTSS tiered supports and CTE pathway tracking, to monitor progress toward the district’s “vision of a graduate.”

The presentation focused on how teacher-led professional learning communities (PLCs) and new interim assessments are intended to provide timely, standards-aligned data that teachers can use quickly to adjust instruction and supports for students.

District leaders said the IABs were selected after teacher and principal feedback that earlier benchmarking tools at the high-school level produced low student engagement and took more instructional time. Executive Director Jim Gray described IABs as “It is merely 1 measure of student learning, but allows us to allow align our assessments directly with standards and among all our high school students.” He and other presenters said the blocks were designed to be completed in roughly one class period and to match the district’s essential standards.

Brian Grama, director of curriculum, instruction and assessment for secondary, told the board that teacher voice drove the selection and scheduling of IABs this fall and that participation rates were strong, generally in the 70–80% range across assessed courses. Grama contrasted that with participation under the district’s prior high-school diagnostic, I-Ready, which he said had participation rates near 50% for reading and about 40% for math. He said fall IAB results included roughly 70% of students at or near/above standards on the English 9 reading-literary assessment and about 62% at or near/above on an Algebra assessment.

School leaders and teachers stressed that the assessments are one tool among many and that the instructional follow-up — common formative assessments, targeted interventions, coaching and PLC discussion — is key. Skyview High School Principal Andy Meyer described building-level structures for collaboration, including a guiding coalition, intervention (I) team and student equity groups; he highlighted Panorama survey data the school uses to measure belonging and social-emotional learning.

Luke Glassett, a Skyview teacher, said the school “offers a myriad of opportunities for a diversified teaching community to lead and collaborate in areas such as MTSS, PLCs, grading practices, assessment, safety, budget, CRE, and SEL.” Counselors and mental-health staff described tier 2 interventions the school piloted; mental-health specialist Ro Mustakas said staff observed links between improved executive-function skills and students’ sense of belonging.

Teachers and students who took part in targeted interventions shared early outcomes. Teacher Ken Wiggins reported on a spring tier 2 co-teaching focus group run during intervention time: “I am very proud to report that in my class, 15 out of 21 students improved from failing to passing, achieving a 71% success rate.” Student Paden Franklin described the impact: “I had been studying for this test for 3 weeks and I got a hundred and I felt so amazing.”

CTE Director Mark Reath outlined expansion of district courses that satisfy graduation pathways — including applied algebra, financial algebra and new college-in-the-high-school offerings — and described a beta dashboard intended to let counselors and staff search by school and student to check pathway completion, transcripts and early-intervention opportunities.

Presenters described next steps: adding IAB indicators to a district data dashboard, continuing teacher feedback cycles, training building leadership teams on data use, and considering expansion of IABs or pilots in middle-school courses (including possible inclusion of 8th-grade algebra students) after further discussion with middle-school principals. The district said demographic and item-level breakdowns of IAB results can be generated on request.

Board members and staff agreed to continue the two-part progress-monitoring format: the Jan. 28 session for grades 9–12 and a Feb. session covering pre-K–8 work. District leaders encouraged board input on the format as they finalize Phase 2 of district reporting.