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Acton-Boxborough reviews MCAS results, identifies grade‑3 literacy as urgent focus

Acton-Boxborough Regional School Committee · November 7, 2025
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AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

District leaders told the school committee that spring 2025 assessments show strengths overall but persistent subgroup gaps and a district average of roughly 58% meeting expectations in grade‑3 ELA; officials outlined monitoring steps, coaching changes and possible DESE high‑dosage tutoring applications to accelerate recovery.

Acton‑Boxborough Regional School District officials presented spring assessment results and said the district will prioritize interventions for early literacy after seeing uneven recovery since the pandemic.

Gabby Abrams, district academic lead, told the school committee that the district “was deemed as meeting or exceeding our targets” in the state accountability framework for 2025, but highlighted two pause points: grade‑3 English language arts and grade‑8 mathematics. On the grade‑3 ELA chart she said the district aggregate was “to be at 58% as a district,” and noted that some schools and subgroups performed substantially below that average.

Principals at Gates and McCarthy Town described changes aimed at strengthening Tier‑1 instruction — including vertical teams that bring teachers across grades together, longer conference times for standardized caregiver communication, and retooled coaching cycles that place coaches inside classrooms during instruction. McCarthy Town principal Christine Nielen said the school has moved coaches “into the classrooms doing coaching cycles with the teachers to really be able to look at those instructional decisions and that instructional practice in real time.”

Committee members pressed for specifics about how declines in performance relate to changing student demographics. Abrams said an early‑literacy data dive convened last week with about 25 K–3 educators surfaced writing and written expression as an implementation dip tied to adoption of a new curriculum: “we're really in year 2 of a new comprehensive core curriculum resource adoption with EL Education,” she said, adding that some of the drop reflects that transition.

Superintendent Peter said the district is considering a menu of interventions: expanded reading interventions for the most affected schools, partnership work with external providers, and an application to DESE for high‑dosage tutoring targeted at early grades if funding is available. “There's no guarantee that we would get that funding,” he added, but said it is among the options under active consideration.

District officials emphasized that they will continue to disaggregate results, track formative fall screening data, and pair Tier‑1 improvements with targeted Tier‑2 and Tier‑3 supports. The committee asked staff to return with more detailed school‑level plans and the metrics they will use to monitor short‑term and long‑term progress.