LRSD interim assessments show gains; district leaders outline expanded supplemental supports for literacy, math and science

District staff told the Little Rock School District board that interim spring assessment results show growth from fall to spring across English language arts, mathematics and the ATLAS science interim, and they outlined a set of tiered, supplemental instructional tools and supports the district is deploying to accelerate learning.

Miss Gooti, a district staff presenter, said the spring interim assessment was administered the week of March 12 with a districtwide makeup day on March 21 and emphasized staff use data to inform instruction: “...everything we do is data informed.” The district’s ELA and math interim results are reported as percent correct on district‑generated items aligned to grade‑level content; staff emphasized these are different instruments at different administrations but are used for feedback on student learning and growth.

Kelly Bell, the district’s director of teaching and learning, told the board that some grade bands showed notable gains: “We saw some pretty nice improvement from fall to spring,” and she highlighted third grade where, for one subset of ELA standards (using evidence to support thinking), students performed in the mid‑sixties while other items (interpreting graphs and charts) scored in the thirties.

Bell said math performance remains a district focus and that math professional learning will be a priority at the district Leadership Institute and fall professional development. On schedule changes she said, “we didn't really change math time per se, just kind of changing the way that we're using the time in the schedule.”

Joel Spencer, K–12 science coordinator, described pilots and usage data for Gizmos, a science simulation program. He reported heavy use at grades 3–5 — “we had 48,000 student logins at 3–5” and about 3,100 teacher logins — and said grades 6–12 recorded roughly 50,000 student logins and 2,500 teacher logins, a year‑over‑year increase of about 27 percent. Spencer said Gizmos’ simulations align closely with the simulation‑style items on the state science interim and that the tool provides students opportunities to manipulate variables, collect data and analyze results.

District staff reviewed planned and existing supplemental tools: MagPi (a K–2 literacy tool to support foundational skills and dyslexia characteristics), Lexia (secondary literacy support), DreamBox (K–8 adaptive math), ALEKS (secondary math), and Gizmos (science simulations). Staff said MagPi would replace Lexia in K–2 and noted MagPi uses an external assessment (Stanford’s ROAR) to provide an additional validity check. Costs presented in the meeting record include an estimate that MagPi costs about $17 per student and total district licensing for MagPi was described as “under $75,000.”

Board members pressed administration on tutoring and tier‑3 supports. One director asked about Ignite, a vendor the district used in 2023–24. Staff said $6 million was a one‑time expenditure in fiscal 2023–24 that served roughly 2,000 students; for the current year staff reported Ignite is serving about 300 students at an annual cost cited in the meeting as about $750,000. Board members questioned the per‑student cost and asked administrators to pursue grant funding or lower‑cost options for high‑impact tutoring; staff noted the state had been releasing a high‑impact tutoring grant they would pursue.

Staff also discussed home access and parent engagement for supplemental tools. Bell described that some tools allow home access (DreamBox) and others are designed to require teacher interaction to ensure appropriate use (Lexia). She emphasized dashboards will flag students who need teacher intervention rather than repeated independent practice without adult support.

Board members asked about summer learning loss, staffing for math and whether interim results were affected by recent school closures; staff answered that summer loss varies but that district initiatives such as Reading in the Rocks and expanded targeted supports can mitigate loss.

District leaders said the literacy curriculum adoption process will be a major work item in 2025–26, with teacher representatives from each school engaged in the selection. They also said the district will continue to focus on math and science scheduling and supplemental programs to support skills alignment with new state assessment formats.

Board members thanked the teaching and learning team for the overview and asked for follow‑ups on tutoring grant opportunities and an updated crosswalk of interim data to state assessments.