District annual report flags state assessment transition and data-reporting discrepancies

The Grand Forks Public Schools administration presented its 2024–25 annual report to the school board on Dec. 8, 2025, citing enrollment changes, increases in multilingual and special education populations, and concerns about statewide assessment comparability and data-reporting errors that affect public graduation-rate figures.

Chief administrative presenters said the district saw a one-year reversal after a prior enrollment spike and a 1.7 percentage-point rise in free-and-reduced-lunch counts for 2024–25. District leaders also reported that the multilingual program serves roughly 477–478 students and that the special education December 1 count was 1,532 students — about 20% of the district — up from 1,473 the previous year.

A central focus of the discussion was the state’s transition from the North Dakota State Assessment (NDSA) to the new NDA plus assessment. Chief Academic Officer Amy Barch told the board that the vendor change and new cut scores create numerous "asterisks" when comparing results across years. Barch said the district is pressing for clarity on norming and cut-score decisions and noted that some metrics may shift after correlation studies are completed.

Separately, district staff detailed a reporting mismatch between the district’s PowerSchool student information system and the North Dakota STARS platform. The discrepancy produced different graduation-rate figures: the state’s ND Insights portal currently shows a 74% rate for the district, while the district’s manual calculation gave an 85% rate. Staff said they appealed to state authorities to unlock and resubmit corrected data; that appeal was denied. Administration said the state is aware these integration issues recur and that the planned move to Infinite Campus as a unified state platform should remove the need for manual transfers between systems.

Board members pressed for faster resolution and broader advocacy. Several trustees urged the administration to escalate concerns in state forums and webinars where data are published, and to continue follow-up through appeal channels, because district funding and public perceptions rely on accurate public reporting.

Officials also reviewed subgroup achievement and assessment interpretation: ACT participation and results no longer align directly with NDA plus reporting; district presenters cautioned readers about comparing across assessment instruments without acknowledging those methodological changes.

The presentation included a financial snapshot later in the meeting: administration reported general fund revenues of $49,868,912 and year-to-date expenditures of approximately $40,000,008 for the first five months of fiscal year 2026, leaving a positive variance of about $9 million at that interim point. The board approved the general fund financial statement after the presentation.