Bath County administrators outline district improvement plan, push math and career-pathway gains

Doctor Bailey presented Bath County Schools’ comprehensive district improvement plan and outlined three core improvement priorities: strengthen Tier 1 classroom instruction, raise math achievement across grade levels, and increase college- and career-pathway completers.

Bailey said the district built the plan from the previous year’s KSA (state assessment) results and focused on targeted supports, pacing and teacher oversight "so every student is getting all the content that's needed." He framed Tier 1 improvement as the top priority: "Tier 1 instruction means the instruction that everybody gets, that every kid's sitting in that class and they're getting this instruction."

Why it matters: district KSA results showed mixed outcomes by school and subject. The presentation identified high performance in social studies, science and writing at multiple grade levels but weaker math performance districtwide and gaps in certain middle-school reading measures. The district says improving core instruction and interventions will reduce the number of students needing intensive Tier 3 support.

Administrators described concrete steps already underway. The district has implemented a shared “pacing guide warehouse” so teachers across schools align to grade-level standards and timelines. Principals are conducting structured classroom walkthroughs using a standardized form that flags whether teachers are posting success criteria, engaging students in productive struggle and teaching at grade level. The district also runs weekly PLCs to align instruction and to set success criteria for lessons.

On math, Bailey and staff said Bath County obtained a math-focused grant (referred to in the presentation as the MAF grant) that funded math coaches at Crossroads and Owingsville Elementary School. The district also has math interventionists in each school and has been training teachers in I-Ready and the Envisions curriculum to improve fidelity of instruction.

Chad Pruitt, identified in the meeting as the district’s dean of students, described hands-on efforts to boost college and career readiness, saying he has "met personally with every senior and junior and most of the sophomores regarding their career and college readiness." Pruitt said the high school’s CTE (career and technical education) team is creating a CTE checklist and that the district’s goal is to raise completer rates from roughly 27.6% toward a 50% target next year.

District leaders also highlighted other supports: a New Teacher Academy to support early-career teachers, monthly data meetings and an expanded system for tracking individual student growth. Bailey noted calendar impacts on instruction — the district had used all 10 NTI days this year and had fewer than typical in-person instructional days before the spring tests — and said principals and teachers are prioritizing ‘‘the big rocks’’ of curriculum for the remaining instruction days.

The presentation included midyear benchmark graphs showing reading and math growth percentiles; district leaders said most schools are above the 50% midpoint growth target on reading and highlighted Crossroads and OES as having particularly strong midyear growth.

Next steps: administrators asked the board to accept the CDIP packet and continue supporting the implementation steps — pacing guides, walkthroughs, math coaching and CTE supports — with periodic reporting back to the board.