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FastBridge presenters urge continued funding as ESSER runs out
Summary
Renaissance Learning and FastBridge staff told the committee the FastBridge statewide program screens and monitors reading and math for roughly 325,000 students and urged sustained funding after ESSER expires.
Chris Wilson, vice president of government affairs for Renaissance Learning, and Charlene Ball, national academic advisor, described FastBridge as an assessment-and-intervention system used across Kansas and urged lawmakers to consider continued support after federal ESSER funds end.
"FastBridge is an assessment and intervention system to help identify [and] monitor student progress in reading and math from kindergarten through twelfth grade," Wilson said. He said FastBridge operates in a 50/50 funding model in Kansas, with districts covering roughly half the assessment fee and the other half funded through federal ESSER dollars that the presenters said will run out after the 2025–26 school year.
Wilson told the committee FastBridge participation had grown from 206 to 239 public districts in Kansas between fall 2022 and fall 2024, testing about 325,000 students and administering nearly 3 million assessments last school year. He said the current contract for the program serving those students is about $1,835,000 and that a statewide estimate for testing all public-school students in 2026–27 would be around $1,900,000 on the state side (the audience clarified that the state share would be matched by local districts, i.e., roughly twice that amount in total).
Ball emphasized early intervention and described FastBridge''s screening and progress-monitoring features. "Evidence shows that early education intervention can partially offset the impacts of poverty," she said, and described FastBridge as combining curriculum-based measures, skill-specific measures and a computer-adaptive assessment that yields both risk-level and specific skill information for teachers. Ball and Wilson said school teams receive a Student-to-Intervention report that recommends interventions, suggested lesson plans, dosage and progress-monitoring measures.
Presenters said FastBridge is on KSDE-approved lists for universal screening, dyslexia characteristics screening and intervention programs, and that Kansas MTSS encourages districts to use evidence-based screeners, including FastBridge. They also noted ancillary supports: Renaissance provides a complimentary technical account manager and professional learning in partnership with state providers.
Committee members asked about parental access to data (Ball: results are shareable with parents and can be sent after each screening or progress-monitoring event), digital portability of records (Wilson: student records are rostered to state student ID numbers and can follow a student), private-school participation (Wilson: some private schools use FastBridge but the ESSER-tied model limits participation funded by ESSER to public districts), and per-pupil cost dynamics (Wilson provided aggregate contract figures and said discounts apply as more students test).
Ending: Presenters urged the committee to consider sustainability plans so districts that rely on FastBridge for screening and progress monitoring can retain longitudinal data and consistent measures after ESSER funds expire.
