Verona Area board approves social studies monitoring report as achieving reasonable progress

The Verona Area School District board voted to approve the district's social studies results monitoring report as "achieving reasonable progress." The board moved the item earlier on the agenda and approved the motion by voice vote.

District staff told trustees that after one year of implementing a new social studies curricular resource, fourth‑grade overall proficiency rose by about 4 percent and an 11 percent increase was reported for Hispanic and Latinx students; eighth‑grade proficiency rose roughly 3.5 percent overall and 5 percent for multilingual students. Presenters cautioned those figures represent a single benchmark grade per level and highlighted small focus‑group sizes — as few as 22–23 students — that can magnify percentage swings.

Katie Moore, identified in the meeting as an instructional coach at Sugar Creek, described three leadership moves behind the changes: the curriculum adoption itself, targeted professional learning using backwards design, and an emphasis on inquiry standards. Moore and other presenters described a K–5 inquiry pilot at Sugar Creek that used student voice and teacher feedback to build project‑based assessment rubrics.

Board members asked staff to incorporate more "leading" classroom data and brief examples from PLCs (teacher professional learning communities) into future monitoring packets so trustees can better connect forward exam results to everyday classroom practice. Trustees also discussed the challenge of setting numerical targets when sample sizes are small and emphasized the need to surface narratives from teachers and students during monitoring.

The motion to accept results policy 2.3 (social studies) as achieving reasonable progress was made, seconded and approved by the board. The district said it will continue to monitor implementation and report updates in future cycles.