Easton district presents assessment baseline, cites literacy and math as urgent priorities

District curriculum and instruction staff presented baseline student-assessment data and an implementation plan at the Dec. 2 board meeting, saying the district must accelerate structured literacy and math instruction to meet proficiency goals.

Assistant Superintendent Anita Draper told the board the district’s short-term target is to have 75% of students at or above benchmark this year, with an ultimate target of 80% by 2027. Draper and the curriculum-and-instruction (C&I) team reviewed a decade of PSSA results showing post‑2019 declines and said mathematics proficiency in particular remains below state averages across most grades.

The C&I team said the district is expanding structured literacy practices and has begun ECRI (Enhanced Core Reading Instruction) coaching in targeted schools, along with a principal academy, instructional rounds and multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) intended to build consistent classroom practice and increase student engagement. "We developed a principal academy... and we established instructional rounds focused on classroom observations," Draper said.

Staff outlined the use of multiple assessment tools: Acadience (referred to in the presentation alongside DIBELS-style screening) for early literacy, STAR for norm-referenced growth measures in upper grades, and IXL diagnostics and practice to individualize skill work. Jennifer Hilton described expanding Acadience benchmarking to grades 3–5 and training interventionists for midyear administration.

Board members pressed staff on apparent discrepancies between district-reported proficiency figures and numbers on the PDE website. A district data presenter explained the difference: the district’s reporting (eMetrix) counts every student who took the assessment in the district, including pupils who enrolled after Oct. 1 and are excluded from PDE accountability counts, which can change percentages for small cohorts.

Administrators acknowledged the scale of improvement needed: presenters said ELA proficiency ranged roughly from 37% to 66% by grade and math from 34% to 46%, and described immediate steps—fidelity to approved curriculum, targeted intervention during WINS (intervention) blocks, after-school and summer programs, and ongoing professional development—to narrow gaps. The C&I team said it will return to the board with midyear growth data in February.

Quotes in this article come from the C&I presentation and on-record board discussion recorded in the public transcript.