West Oso ISD reports early assessment gains across grades but flags junior-high writing and reading for targeted intervention
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Summary
District staff presented assessment gains from the beginning of year to first nine-week results while highlighting high counts of zero scores on constructed responses (writing) at junior high. Staff and trustees discussed targeted interventions including professional learning, Renaissance incentives, and the foundation-funded reading specialist.
Miss Garcia presented district assessment results showing notable gains between beginning-of-year (BOY) assessments and first nine-week summatives. Several examples given by presenters: third-grade English approaches rose from 18% at BOY to 63% on the first nine-week assessment; third-grade math rose from about 9% to 82%; fourth-grade reading moved from 38% to 97%. At the high-school level, English I rose from 31% to 77% and English II from 39% to 75%. Presenters said Algebra I approaches reached near 100% in some cohorts.
Despite those increases, district staff flagged constructed-response (writing) scores at the junior-high level as a major focus. Presenters said the number of zeros on extended-constructed responses decreased from 81 to 25 in some elementary grades but remained high in some middle-school cohorts; staff described classroom strategies to reduce zeros, including teachers cutting up responses into journals, explicit rubrics and peer feedback, and targeted PLC work. Dr. Castillo and other leaders described implementing Renaissance (Accelerated Reader) at junior high, targeted reading interventions, and AVID-aligned professional learning to improve peer feedback and writing instruction.
During the meeting trustees and staff discussed the foundation's recently reported $50,000 allocation to a junior-high reading specialist (reported by foundation co-chairs). District leaders described the reading-specialist role as an intensive, focused position to do modeling for teachers and to work directly with students at or below grade level, and they said the foundation requested measurable outcomes to justify ongoing support. Trustees emphasized that "all hands" need to be on deck at junior high and discussed timelines to begin interventions and to test students not yet assessed.
Administrators said they will target interventions using disaggregated data to identify students a year or more behind grade level, begin reading interventions within a week for identified students, and provide monthly updates through PLCs and district reports. Staff also discussed using small incentive budgets to encourage reading achievement and exploring how foundation funds could expand incentive programs.