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Woodburn School Board gets PD on STAR assessments; district to shift which grades take which tests
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Summary
At a special board meeting, Renaissance Learning staff briefed Woodburn School District directors on STAR assessment purpose, reliability, and reports. District staff said they will give STAR Early Literacy to K–2 and STAR Reading to grades 3–8 next school year, with teachers able to switch individual students who 'level up.'
The Woodburn School District board on Tuesday evening held a professional development session on the Renaissance STAR assessment system, hearing from Renaissance advisors about how STAR is used to screen students, measure growth and inform instruction. District Director Chrissy Chapman and Renaissance national academic advisor Faith Smith led the presentation and a question-and-answer period.
"My name is Faith Smith, and I'm a national academic advisor from Renaissance Learning," Smith said, describing STAR as an interim screener given three times a year and backed by large normative datasets. She told the board the assessment uses national percentile ranks and linked scaled scores to predict state assessment levels, and said STAR has a deep research base: "We've had over 300 studies done on STAR." The presenters described STAR as a computer-adaptive test that uses item-response theory to place students at an instructional level and to identify students at risk.
Chapman framed the district purpose for the PD and explained how the district uses the measures in conjunction with classroom formative assessments. She told the board that, based on this first year of implementation and students who "leveled up," the district will standardize which assessments are given by grade next year: "So next year, we'll do STAR Early Literacy K–2 and then the STAR Reading, 3 through 8," with teachers able to move individual students between assessments if they do not pass the practice checks.
The presentation covered testing logistics and language supports. The district and Renaissance clarified that STAR has a Spanish learning progression and Spanish curriculum-based measures, and that the district created one-minute Russian CBMs for one‑on‑one screening where a Russian computer-adaptive test is not available. Chapman said students log in through the district's Clever single sign-on and that test access is restricted to school hours so students could not take STAR at home.
Presenters explained the three main score types schools will see: scaled scores (an indicator of instructional level), nationally normed percentile ranks (how a student compares to peers), and student-growth percentiles (SGP), which compare growth to academic peers. Smith and district staff emphasized that these different reports serve different purposes—screening, instructional planning and growth monitoring—and cautioned against relying on a single measure for high-stakes decisions.
Locally, Chapman told the board that in the fall about "250 kids who leveled up to the reading assessment," and that winter testing had "about 300... about 350 students" move up; she said teachers and intervention teams have been reviewing those cycles in core-review meetings and that understanding and use of the data increased between cycles. The district also hosted Renaissance trainers during recent PD days to support teacher interpretation of biliteracy and growth reports.
Board members asked practical questions about teacher access to results and test timing; staff replied that teachers receive STAR data within minutes and that STAR Early Literacy takes about 10 minutes, STAR Reading and STAR Math take about 20 minutes each, and CBMs take roughly one minute.
The board did not take a formal vote on a policy change during the meeting; the district described the operational change in which grades will take which STAR assessments next year and said staff will continue training and classroom-level planning around the data.
