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Caledonia district reports reading and math gains, notes decline in upper-grade math; receives $380,000 in state 'Filter First' funds
Summary
District staff presented Winter/Spring assessment results showing substantial K–4 gains and strong PSAT/SAT reading, while PSAT math declines at higher grades prompted targeted interventions. The district also announced a $380,000 state grant to support water-filtering requirements under a recent program.
District staff gave a broad update on student achievement at the Dec. 16 Caledonia Community Schools Board of Education meeting, highlighting strong early-grade gains on I-Ready and mixed results on state assessments while outlining plans to use the Michigan Continuous Improvement Plan and the district strategic plan to address persistent gaps.
Dr. Diaz, presenting the update during the superintendent’s report, described benchmark and state assessment results across K–11. Key points included a reported 95% of kindergarten students meeting the spring benchmark in 2023–24 and district improvement in I-Ready placement for K–4 from 15% mid-or-above grade level in fall to 65% by spring. The district attributed part of the math gains to the 2020–21 adoption of Ready Math for K–8 and said it has added I-Ready ELA benchmarking and MyPath interventions in the prior year.
Despite gains in early grades and relatively strong PSAT and SAT reading scores, Dr. Diaz told the board that PSAT math scores decline markedly at 10th grade and that the district is investigating causes, including through student interviews. She said the district uses winter I-Ready benchmarks to project M-STEP proficiency and to form intervention groups between winter and spring testing.
Dr. Diaz outlined planned actions to address gaps: embedding goals in the Michigan Continuous Improvement Plan (MICIP) and the district strategic plan, reinforcing relationship-driven instruction, expanding professional learning communities, and strengthening tier 1 classroom instruction as well as tier 2 and tier 3 interventions. She said the district added new intervention supports at Craft and at the high school this year and will monitor implementation of curricular and intervention tools.
The superintendent’s report also included operational updates. District staff said the state recently awarded $50 million in federal funds to the state for a program the district called "Filter First." Caledonia’s application, prepared by staff including Mr. Hess, secured more than $380,000 in grant funds, one of the larger awards in the region, the presenter said. District staff said the award will require labeling drinking water sources and installing filters for any water that could be consumed; implementation tasks and procurement are expected to follow.
Finance staff also reported an extended effort to replace the district’s financial software; Sarah and her team worked late hours to migrate data because the old system reached end-of-life. Mr. Reyes provided a budget update later in the meeting that included revised enrollment counts and updated state retirement reimbursement estimates.
Board members asked questions about evaluation measures, teacher feedback on I-Ready and Ready Math, and how the district will benchmark progress. Dr. Diaz said teacher feedback on I-Ready had not been formally collected since her arrival, but informal reports from staff were generally favorable and the district is monitoring Year 2 implementation of I-Ready ELA and MyPath supports.
