Tonganoxie board hears mixed CAP and FastBridge results, staff outline literacy and intervention plans
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Summary
Miss Taylor presented CAP and FastBridge baseline data showing modest gains in some grade bands and persistent gaps in early literacy. Board members pressed for grade-level breakdowns, volunteer and staffing strategies for small-group interventions, and more historical comparison data.
Miss Taylor, district instructional lead, presented school-improvement data to the Tonganoxie USD 464 Board of Education on Nov. 10, outlining goals to reduce "level ones" by 5% in ELA and math and to increase students scoring at levels three and four on the Kansas CAP assessment.
The presentation covered professional development, behavior supports and assessment results. "We are looking to decrease our level ones by 5% in both ELA and math at all 3 buildings," Miss Taylor said, and she noted the district is continuing tiered instruction and interventions across K–12.
Miss Taylor reviewed building-level CAP results. At the elementary school, ELA level ones moved from 27% to 26.6% while levels three and four rose from 40.6% to 47%. Middle grades and high-school results varied: the district reported a decrease in some level-one cohorts and increases in levels three and four in other grades. She cautioned that CAP comparisons are complicated because cohorts tested each year are not identical.
On FastBridge baseline screening, Miss Taylor said kindergartners entered early-math measures at about 74% and that the district aims for 80% to consider Tier 1 fully effective. For early literacy, kindergarten onset/letter-sound measures were roughly 59%/57% and first-grade sentence reading was about 33% on grade level. "We are progressing progress monitoring, letter sounds, decodable pass decodable words," she said, describing CBMs and other tools used for monitoring.
Board members requested more granular data. Speaker 1 asked for grade-level comparisons and historical FastBridge results; Miss Taylor agreed to provide separate grade-level breakdowns and noted FastBridge can produce one year back while CAP can be produced longitudinally for a longer window.
Responding to concerns about small-group intervention capacity, Miss Taylor said the district lacks sufficient staff for the intended small-group (Tier 2) work and is exploring recruiting high-school students as helpers and increasing parent volunteers. She also described classroom strategies such as the ‘bag book’ program for K–1 and supplemental programs like UFLY and 6-Minute Solutions for early readers.
The district emphasized professional development and coaching supports, including administrative walkthroughs and PLCs focused on aligning instruction and assessments. Board members pressed staff to return with more disaggregated data at a future meeting.
The board took no formal action on instructional programs during the meeting; staff will provide requested breakdowns and further updates.