District unveils new middle-school diagnostic, reviews start‑of‑year literacy and math dipsticks

Holly Mealey and Jillian (staff members) told the Newberg‑Dundee Public Schools Board of Directors that the district’s beginning‑of‑year diagnostics show most students at or near benchmark in literacy and variable results in math, and that the district added a new Star Renaissance reading diagnostic this year for grades 6–8.

The district uses multiple locally selected diagnostic tools: MCLASS/DIBELS for K–5 literacy, I‑Ready for elementary math, Lectura for dual‑language literacy, and Star Renaissance for middle‑school reading (the district is piloting Star this year). Staff emphasized these are “dipstick” diagnostics administered in the first three weeks of school and are designed for instructional use, not as end‑of‑year accountability measures.

Holly described districtwide benchmark percentages the presentation displayed: third grade at about 60% on grade‑level measures; fourth grade at about 61% (compared with roughly 49.6% on last year’s OSAS for that cohort); and fifth grade at about 62% (OSAS comparison about 57.8%). Holly cautioned these diagnostics are correlated with OSAS but not identical and said some grade‑level comparisons are limited where OSAS was not available.

At the middle schools, staff said the Star Renaissance pilot shows the majority of students at or near benchmark, with smaller groups in the yellow (one grade level below) and red (multiple grade levels below) bands that will receive tiered interventions. For math, I‑Ready results show stronger proficiency in lower grades (for example, roughly 64% of third graders at or above benchmark districtwide) and lower apparent proficiency by eighth grade; staff noted that eighth‑grade diagnostic counts are skewed by accelerated students who don’t take the beginning‑of‑year diagnostic and that the OSAS eighth‑grade math test is a more demanding assessment.

Board members and student representatives raised concerns about test fatigue and the reliability of click‑through diagnostics. Student representatives said some middle‑school students do not take the state test seriously and recommended more practice and clearer student communication about the test’s purpose. A student suggested breaking the state test into shorter sections with breaks for middle‑schoolers to reduce fatigue; board and staff members agreed to consider that feedback. Andy (board member) and Nathan (staff member) discussed differences in test purpose: staff reiterated Star/diagnostics are for instruction and progress monitoring while OSAS is an end‑of‑year accountability test that includes writing and performance tasks and is therefore not directly comparable.

Staff said they will return with OSAS results disaggregated by student subgroup and with comparisons to neighboring districts; they also plan to present a fuller local assessment plan that will include interim assessments, writing samples and speaking rubrics to show how the district links diagnostics to OSAS readiness.

A pilot of Star is limited this year to reading specialists and select staff (district said Star access will broaden once the pilot phase completes). Staff highlighted that Star’s reporting can link student performance to standards and suggest focused instructional steps for teachers and families.

The board asked for further clarification on benchmark definitions and on how diagnostic scaled scores and percentile ranks were displayed; staff said they will follow up with school‑level detail in a future report and noted that some chart displays reflect different score types (percentile versus scaled score) which can visually distort benchmarks across sites.