State education staff train district leaders to analyze mid‑year Acadience data in ALO

Theresa McIntyre, Assessment Development Coordinator at the Utah State Board of Education, led a virtual training for district and school staff on analyzing middle‑of‑year Acadience benchmark data using ALO (Acadience Learning Online).

The session explained how to use the composite score, the effectiveness of instructional support report and the Pathways of Progress measures to identify students who need additional support and to evaluate whether core instruction and interventions are moving students toward benchmarks. McIntyre said, “This composite score is the likelihood of success on future benchmarks.”

Why it matters: the presenters said middle‑of‑year data are intended to identify students who need different or additional supports before end‑of‑year assessments, and to inform system‑level decisions about instruction. Jared Ray, Elementary Math and Science Assessment Specialist at the Utah State Board of Education, summarized a guideline emphasized in the training: “If you are moving 80 to a 100% of your below or well below students up and maintaining those at or above benchmark level, then your instruction is…