Board hears district achievement report; directors press for urgent literacy interventions

District leaders presented the Comprehensive Achievement and Civic Readiness report and responded to detailed questions from board members about academic performance and resource allocation.

Directors expressed alarm at some results. Director Atkinson said the outcomes were "dismal" and urged urgent corrective action after noting that the district spends roughly $1,000,000 on A&I work; staff stated that about 35% of that amount (approximately $350,000) is funded by the local levy. Board members singled out third‑grade reading proficiency as a priority, saying that nearly half of students were not proficient and warning that deficits in early reading can cascade into other subjects.

Staff described how goals are set (often as "stretch" goals that increase annually by about three percentage points) and noted that not meeting a goal does not always mean performance declined. Administrators outlined current measures to address gaps: a REDACT pilot intended to provide tiered interventions, a field test of a new phonics/decodable-text curriculum (Arts and Letters), expanded professional learning for teachers on the science of reading, and targeted school‑level interventions. Principals and secondary leaders said the district is constrained by limited intervention staff (typically one interventionist and one EL teacher per school) and by competing adoption work across subjects, and asked the board to weigh resource tradeoffs.

Board members asked for clearer corrective-action plans tied to the CACR data and for ongoing reporting on pilot implementation and fidelity of curriculum adoption. Staff said these pilots would scale in subsequent years and that they would provide more detailed action plans to the board.