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Falmouth schools report above‑norm I‑Ready results, shift focus to 'stretch growth'
Summary
District presenters told the school committee that Falmouth students outperformed state and national I‑Ready norms on spring diagnostics but emphasized a new focus on 'stretch growth'—the additional progress students must make to close learning gaps.
Karen Carson and Erin Castagio presented the Falmouth Public Schools’ end‑of‑year literacy and mathematics assessment results, telling the school committee that the district’s I‑Ready diagnostics show performance above state and national norms but that closing remaining gaps requires higher “stretch growth.”
The presentation outlined multiple measures: district I‑Ready placement distributions, subgroup growth for English learners and students with disabilities, and K–3 foundational screening via mClass. “Our median annual typical growth is a 122%,” Karen Carson told the committee, citing the district’s diagnostic median and noting that 62% of students met or exceeded typical growth on the I‑Ready measure.
Castagio described how the district is using the data operationally: setting typical and stretch growth goals for each student; embedding tiered supports within MTSS (multi‑tiered system of supports); expanding UDL (universal design for learning) practice; and using MyPath and small‑group instruction for interventions. She said the district has shifted this year from a broad focus on typical growth toward targeted work designed to increase stretch‑growth rates for struggling learners.
The presentation included subgroup breakdowns: median growth for multilingual learners and students with disabilities exceeded 100% in the diagnostic’s growth metric, though both groups continued to lag in baseline placement. Presenters emphasized that meeting stretch‑growth goals repeatedly across years is what changes baseline placement and narrows gaps.
Committee members pressed for additional context. Members asked for school‑level disaggregation and clarification of the comparison population behind national and state norms; presenters noted slide figures (a national sample cited on slides as 10.2 million and Massachusetts as ~203,000) and agreed to provide more school‑level detail after the meeting. Presenters also explained accommodations for students with IEPs and other testing needs: early grades' mClass assessments are administered largely 1:1, and diagnostic accommodations (small group, read‑aloud, 1:1) are used where warranted.
The next steps the district outlined include continuing professional development on I‑Ready and EL Education curriculum implementation, sustaining tiered intervention blocks in schedules, and producing the requested school‑level breakdowns to be shared with the committee.
