West Bend curriculum committee reviews academic-standards notice, assessment calendar and 2025–26 professional development plan

The West Bend School District Curriculum Committee on June 17 reviewed a notice of academic standards, a draft 2025–26 assessment calendar and a professional-development plan that administrators said will extend STAR math screening to kindergarten and allow full implementation of the state'mandated early-literacy screener.

Superintendent Jen Wimmer presented the academic-standards notice, saying the district made no content changes from last year. "No, new standards, no changes. But the board will be asked procedurally to take action on the adoption so then we can share that," Wimmer said. She said the item will be placed on the consent agenda but can be set aside if board members raise questions.

Tina VanRue, the district data and assessment coordinator, described the draft assessment calendar and the one substantive change proposed: "we are proposing that STAR math be extended to kindergarten as we already give it in grades 1 through 8." VanRue said the district will also fully implement the early-literacy screener required by Act 20 next year, noting this past school year was a partial implementation because the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) released the tool late. Under the planned schedule, 4K students would be screened twice and kindergarten through grade 3 would be screened three times, VanRue said.

VanRue also said some dates on the calendar are marked with an asterisk because the district is coordinating with community partners around high-school ACT/preACT administration and related activities for students who are not testing that day.

The committee discussed alignment of assessment windows with professional days and grading periods so staff have timely data for instructional planning. "I think another piece that, when you look at this in isolation that you might not gather is the alignment to some of our professional days so that our staff have the data that they need, to create instructional plans," Wimmer said, summarizing how the pieces are synced for staff and families.

A professional-development plan prepared for 2025–26 was presented to show how PD days map to the district'level curriculum cycle. Presenter Jen Weber (identified in the transcript as the preparer of the PD plan) described the schedule's intent and noted staff were given the draft for feedback. The plan includes role- and site-specific time, individual work time and district-wide sessions. District staff described one requirement tied to literacy implementation: K'4 staff will be accountable for literacy training and an assessment and will spend four hours per month on CKLA-related work outside the school day; administrators said the plan includes crediting that time.

Committee members and administrators said these three documents'the standards notice, assessment calendar and PD plan'will be packaged and presented to the full board for approval before the new school year. No formal committee vote was recorded in the transcript.

Next steps: administrators said they will place the standards notice on the board consent agenda, finalize the assessment calendar dates with community partners, and bring the professional-development calendar and related curriculum-cycle materials to the full school board for approval prior to the July 1 start of the 2025'26 fiscal/school year.