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Centennial presents integrated-programs annual report; kindergarten reading gains noted, sustaining growth a challenge
Summary
Director April Olson reported gains in kindergarten reading after midyear implementation of UFLI supports and educational assistants, but district leaders said sustaining those gains through later grades remains a challenge. The report also reviewed college/career pathway expansion and performance metric targets for the biennium.
April Olson, the district's director of curriculum and student learning, presented Centennial School District's required annual report on its integrated programs plan at the Sept. 10 school board meeting. The report summarized program spending, implementation actions and progress against the district's longitudinal performance growth targets.
Olson said districts are required by statute to review integrated-plan progress each year and to set multi-year growth targets on metrics including third-grade reading proficiency, ninth-grade on-track rates, regular attendance, four-year graduation and five-year completer rates. The presentation covered both programmatic actions and data trends tied to those targets.
The district prioritized early literacy last year by placing trained educational assistants in kindergarten classrooms midyear to support UFLI (Foundational Structured Literacy) instruction and independent reading. Olson said kindergarten teachers were paired with coaches or TOSAs for modeling and co-teaching, educational assistants completed three days of training, and teachers participated in monthly kindergarten collaboration sessions. She reported DIBELS kindergarten benchmark rates rose from 18% at the start of the year to 56% by year's end.
"Even though some of those didn't start until midyear last year, we saw significant gains with our DIBELS data," Olson said.
Olson identified implementation capacity as the primary barrier to sustaining early-grade reading gains. She said the district sees uneven instructional capacity and a large number of students requiring intervention, making it difficult to carry kindergarten gains through later grades. In response, the district plans to deepen PLC (professional learning community) structures and scale instructional practices into second and third grades using a newly awarded comprehensive literacy grant.
Olson also described expanded college- and career-readiness work at the high school level, including sustained Portland State University college-credit Spanish, expanded AP enrollment and expanded CTE offerings. Centennial Middle School added electives such as culinary and hospitality with intention to align pathways to high school programs.
On the district's validation targets, Olson said baseline and stretch targets were met for some metrics; the gap-closing target for one measure missed by 0.4 percentage points. Ninth-grade on-track results finished above baseline and fell about 1 percentage point short of the stretch goal. Graduation rates, she said, were close but did not meet targets. Olson said the district expanded summer programming, offered virtual credit recovery and developed Ninth Grade Counts project-based classes to address on-track and graduation challenges.
Board members asked whether the kindergarten strategies would be continued and scaled. Olson said EAs (educational assistants) will support K and 1 this year and that the district will work to integrate effective structured-literacy practices into later grades while balancing engagement and the joy of reading.
The presentation concluded with an acknowledgement that the 2024-25 data validation process continued through late September, with public release timed for later in the fall. The district will post the annual report on its website and provide the public an opportunity for comment, as required.
