Bibb County reviews 2025 Georgia Milestones results; district highlights reading, writing gains and targets transitions

At a meeting of the Bibb County Board of Education, Olena Stadlick Fuller, the district’s executive director of elementary services, presented a comparative analysis of the district’s 2025 Georgia Milestones results, highlighting areas of growth and remaining gaps across grades and subgroups.

Fuller said the district saw the largest ELA gains between fourth and fifth grade and again between seventh and eighth. She identified schools showing strong reading growth — Berne, Burdell Hunt, Ingram Pye, MLK and Union — and singled out writing gains at Heard, Southfield, Springdale, Union and Williams, with several schools recording increases “of over 20 percentage points.”

The presentation separated ELA into its component domains: reading status (57% of the ELA composite) and writing/language (43%). Fuller said reading progress was “uneven,” with transitions from fifth to sixth grade and from third to fourth grade remaining challenging. She also reported growth for students with disabilities in several grade spans and named Aplin Middle, Bernd, MLK and Union as schools with double-digit gains for that subgroup.

Fuller told the board that gifted students remain high-performing districtwide but that “declines indicate a need to reinforce rigorous expectations” across reading, grammar and writing. She said 16 schools had 100% of their gifted readers at or above reading status and that 19 schools had 100% of gifted students scoring 3 or 4 points on the grammar/conventions domain.

On mathematics, Fuller said the district saw steady improvement overall, with stronger gains in middle and upper grades. Appling Middle, Ingram Pye, Southfield and VIP Academy were listed as sites with double-digit math gains. Gifted math students performed at advanced levels, with seven schools reporting 100% proficiency.

Fuller closed by listing four instructional priorities for the coming year: strengthen teaching expertise through LETRS Volume 2 and a Professional Learning Builder Series; build leadership capacity through coaching clinics and aligned collaborative planning; target and differentiate instruction using programs such as Amira, Freckle and Waggle and expand gifted endorsements; and sustain alignment by protecting instructional blocks and using district unit assessments to track progress.

Board members asked questions about subgroup sample sizes and curriculum implementation. Member Mr. Morton pointed out that some ELL gains may reflect small sample sizes at some schools; Fuller acknowledged the districtwide ELL figures but said ELL population sizes vary substantially by school. One board member asked whether new writing curriculum adoption was responsible for the gains; Fuller said the district’s elementary schools use Step Up to Writing and secondary schools use Write for secondary, and that consistent implementation over multiple years likely explains current improvements.

District staff said the report did not include high school end-of-course EOC results because those assessments vary year to year. Fuller and board members agreed to continue monitoring transition years and to prioritize supports where dips were observed.

The presentation concluded with a call to continue “clearing the path” for instruction by focusing professional learning and targeted supports where the comparative analysis shows the greatest need.