Charles County Public Schools presents results and classroom uses for district common assessments

Charles County Public Schools officials reviewed the district'wide common assessment program and winter results at the April 8 Board of Education meeting, saying the assessments are intended as formative, point-in-time measures to guide instruction and pacing.

School leaders said the common assessments are meant to "look at instructional implications" and help teachers "circle back" to standards students have not mastered, not to replace state tests, Superintendent Maria Navarro and assessment staff said.

Kevin Lowndes, chief of teaching and learning, told the board the assessments exist to "monitor the curriculum" and "to get our students to understand the type of test, questions that are gonna be on the state test." He said the district uses the assessments to check pacing, depth of student knowledge and to expose students to technology used on state tests. "The common assessments are a formative assessment, and they are measuring in that point in time a standard that's being taught within their curriculum," Lowndes told the board.

Lowndes and content specialists outlined how the data are used at each level. Kim Huddler, elementary reading content specialist, said coaches and teachers drill into standards monthly to determine which standards need extra attention. She pointed to one fifth-grade informational-reading standard where 74% of students answered correctly and another skill where only 46% did, and said the district used a January in-service to focus on rigor and instructional implications.

Erica Boardley, a teacher at Brown Elementary, described how her school reviews common-assessment items in class: teachers use quick warm-ups to revisit questions most students missed, then reteach and give practice. "We have this flex time... 30 minutes, 5 days a week, grades 1 through 5, and it's really intended to be flexible to meet the needs of the students," Boardley said.

Secondary staff described similar processes adapted for class periods and larger assessments, including item-analysis by standard and use of protocols to examine student work. Jack Tuttle, social studies content specialist, said the work emphasizes skills such as sourcing and contextualization that recur across assessments and grades.

Board members pressed staff on participation rates, family communication and whether the fall and winter common assessments were comparable. Steve Roberts, director of accountability, said roughly 95% of students completed the assessments this year and that absent students are required to make them up. "So this is, yeah, pretty good indication," Roberts said of the participation data.

Parents and board members asked how the district communicates results to families and how students with IEPs receive accommodations. Lowndes and content staff said the district is working on clearer family reports and noted accommodations that are part of students' IEPs apply to common assessments as well. "If a student has accommodations, the accommodations should be with whatever test and whatever thing that they have. So that would be included in the common assessment as well," content staff member Joanna (first name only in transcript) said.

Teachers and board members also discussed how to help students transfer work they do on paper to online testing formats; secondary staff said students sometimes show more of their mathematical reasoning on paper than they type into computers, and the district is training teachers and students on how to put their reasoning into the digital tool.

Board members urged the district to expand family-facing messaging, including examples of what parents can do at home to support standards. Lowndes said the district has been piloting family letters and unit videos in some subjects and hopes to replicate stronger family communications widely.

District staff said they will continue to use the assessments as a diagnostic and instructional tool while respecting state limitations on assessment time. The presentation included requests from the board for clearer parent reports, continued training on digital test tools, and follow-up data showing year-to-year cohort comparisons.

The board did not take a formal vote on the assessment program at the April 8 meeting; the presentation was informational and staff said they would return with additional communications and data next year.

Sources: Presentation and question-and-answer session with Charles County Public Schools instructional leadership and content specialists at the April 8, 2025 Board of Education meeting.