District assessment staff presented fall 2025 baseline data at the Oct. 27 Flossmoor School District 161 board meeting, with mixed academic and operational signals.

MAP baseline: Courtney Crawford (staff presenter) said the fall NWEA MAP results serve as the school-year baseline. "The fall really is our baseline. It sets the course for the remainder of the school year," Crawford said. The district's mean RIT scores for reading and math are at or above national norms for most grade levels, she reported, a positive starting point administrators said instruction should sustain and accelerate.

ECRA and aimsweb: Staff noted differences in purpose and sampling among assessments. ECRA benchmarking looks at students with multiple data points over time; at Parker, the ECRA sample showed that 28% of the sampled students met the ECRA MAP benchmark (staff stressed that the ECRA % reflects the subset of students with multiple data points in the system). AIMSweb screening is being limited to students likely to need interventions; the district expanded first-grade screening this year.

Interventions and MTSS: Staff emphasized tiered supports. Janicki (staff) and other instructional leaders said teams hold school-level MTSS meetings after each MAP administration to determine interventions. They described layered work: strengthen tier 1 instruction, then add tier 2 and tier 3 interventions for students who need more than one year's growth.

Attendance and discipline concerns: Board members pressed for more detail after staff presented quarter-one data on in-school and out-of-school suspensions and an early rise in chronic absenteeism in several schools (Flossmoor Hills and others), though Parker showed mixed signals. "If students are not present at school, the growth and achievement that we outlined in the beginning of the presentation cannot happen in the same way," a board member said.

Administration noted several potential drivers for increased absences, including family decisions about safety and a range of illnesses; staff said the district does not currently have the capacity to run a sustained hybrid-instruction model similar to pandemic-era remote learning and instead is using Canvas and other asynchronous materials to support students who miss school.

Follow-up requested: Board members asked for more granular breakdowns by grade level, month and excused/unexcused status and for follow-up on whether specific cohorts (for example, sixth-grade transition students) are driving suspension or absence upticks. Staff agreed to return Nov. 17 with additional state-level data (IAR embargo lifts Oct. 30) and a more detailed analysis of chronic absenteeism, behavior by grade and intervention plans.

What was not decided: No policy changes were adopted; the presentation was for information and diagnostic planning.