Associate Superintendent Cindy Barris told the Silver Consolidated Board of Education during its October meeting that the district is building teacher-created milestone assessments intended to predict state-assessment performance and to guide classroom instruction.

Barris said teachers have been moving from outside-created scope and sequence documents to locally updated scope-and-sequence materials and that teachers are now developing assessment banks to produce 25-question milestone checks tied to standards. She told the board the work was slowed by a summer funding freeze that interrupted planned milestone-bank completion, but principals and teachers have asked to join the committees producing the tests.

Barris also reviewed statewide testing results for K–12. She said the K–2 literacy and early-skills product formerly known as Istation, now provided by Amira after an acquisition, is a skill-based screen used by districts for identifying students who need grade-level instruction. At training sessions Amira representatives reportedly told district staff that the product was not intended "to determine proficiency," a claim Barris said surprised local staff because the state has used Istation scores in proficiency reporting. "If it was never intended to be used for proficiency, help me understand why we're using it for proficiency," Barris said.

On grades 3–8, Barris noted the district’s assessments cover ELA, math and (in tested years) science. She said many campus milestone scores fall in the 40–60% range and that milestone assessments are designed to mirror state standards so those ranges should be roughly predictive of state outcomes. "The intention of the milestone assessment is to be a predictor of how we're doing on our state assessments," she said.

Math performance was a major focus of the discussion. Barris and Superintendent William Hopkins described state-level work groups that have spent the last year reimagining high-school math pathways while the Legislature simultaneously revised graduation-course rules. That has created what Hopkins called a "knot" between the work group’s suggested integrated or modern-algebra courses and the legislature’s recent statutory language listing courses that count for graduation. Hopkins and Barris said the state Public Education Department (PED) will offer training and support for districts while local teams must determine how to align instruction, curriculum, and professional development with the revised expectations.

Board members asked for more local planning on math: whether training investments are being verified in classroom practice and what the district’s on-ramp will be to any statewide change in math course sequences. Barris said the district will work within its professional learning communities, ask hard questions at teacher, content and administrative levels, and develop a plan that could include tying funding to math improvement strategies.

The presentation did not include a formal board action. Barris asked board members to review the emailed slide deck she provided and to send follow-up questions by email if they arise.