South Washington County outlines district-wide Read Act implementation, screening and training progress

Kelly Jansen, assistant superintendent and district literacy lead, presented the school district'''s annual literacy report to the board at its Oct. 2 workshop meeting, outlining the district'''s implementation of the Read Act and changes to screening, curriculum and staff training.

"The goal of the Read Act is to have every child reading at or above grade level every year, beginning in kindergarten," Jansen told the board, and described four statutory elements districts must address: universal screening, evidence-based curriculum and interventions, structured-literacy training, and a district literacy lead or contract. She said the district has adopted multiple screeners and training programs to meet those requirements.

Jansen said the district trained more than 1,400 educators last year across programs that included Core Curriculum and structured-literacy courses (Carryall, OLA, ALS and Letters), and that staff at all levels'''from early childhood through adult education'''received instruction. "We trained all of our teachers ... more than 1,400 educators went through a training this last school year," she said. The district also piloted and adopted screeners including FastBridge, MAP and Capti Read Basics for grades 4'—.

Leah Boulos, teaching and learning supervisor and district literacy lead for Read Act efforts, joined Jansen and gave an overview of the data the district uses to guide instruction. She said the board should view satellite assessments such as the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) as system-level snapshots and rely on local assessments for individual instructional decisions.

Jansen and other presenters described how screening and diagnostics are used in the district'''s multi-tiered supports (MTSS): universal screening flags students; diagnostic assessments determine specific foundational skill deficits; and targeted interventions follow based on results. For kindergarten through third grade, staff use FastBridge subtests (letter names, letter sounds, nonsense words and fluency measures) and a timed CBM reading measure; flagged students receive additional diagnostic work to avoid overidentifying students who may have momentary recall or pacing issues.

The district also described a push to train paraprofessionals: Jansen said trainers delivered two-hour modules to about 450 program paraprofessionals, with a reported attendance rate of roughly 89 percent and a second session scheduled to conclude Nov. 4.

On curriculum, the district said it will use University of Florida Literacy Institute (YouFly) as an elementary foundational-skills resource for kindergarten through second grade and said reading specialists are evaluating morphology resources for grades 3'—. The American Reading Company remains the district'''s core resource in early grades while the district refines foundational supports.

Presenters reviewed multiple student- and classroom-level examples of instructional changes tied to training: use of Elkonin boxes in elementary classrooms to teach phoneme segmentation; vocabulary-mapping strategies in secondary science classes; and morphology-focused instruction in adult education customer-service contexts. Several classroom teachers and reading specialists who spoke in the workshop emphasized increased focus on explicit vocabulary instruction, pre-teaching high-frequency unit words, and adjusting core pacing when screeners indicate students can move faster.

In response to board questions about proficiency trends, presenters said that MCAs and local screeners measure different skill sets and should not be conflated. Jansen noted that MCA results and FastBridge results can diverge because the MCA samples a subset of standards and emphasizes higher-order comprehension skills; FastBridge measures more targeted foundational skills. The district reported 55.4 percent of third-through-fifth graders met or exceeded MCA reading standards for 2024'—5, with 21 percent partially meeting and 23.6 percent not meeting on MCA 3 (the district noted the state will move to MCA 4 in 2026 and that comparisons across tests will be limited).

Board members asked how the district determines which students are "reading at grade level." Presenters described an ongoing process of triangulating multiple measures (FastBridge, MAP, diagnostic assessments, service indicators such as special education or English learner status) and said EduCLIMBER, a new district data warehouse, will help build school- and student-level data walls for more comprehensive decision-making.

Board members and staff highlighted that the district'''s work under the Read Act includes both universal and targeted efforts: building teacher capacity in structured literacy, using multiple screeners, increasing paraprofessional training, and adding diagnostics so interventions are more precisely matched to student needs.

Looking ahead the district said training will continue for new staff under board Policy 626 and that the district will wait for forthcoming Minnesota Department of Education guidance on grades 4'—2 interventions; Capti Read Basics will be deployed for flagged older students by Feb. 15 this year. Jansen said the district will monitor the transfer of training to classroom practice and refine resources and professional development accordingly.

Ending: District leaders concluded the literacy workshop by emphasizing ongoing monitoring and that instructional adjustments and interventions will continue across the year. They asked the board to expect periodic updates as screening and diagnostic data are analyzed and interventions are implemented.