Mineral Point board reviews state report card, new third-grade reading metric and ACT results

School administrators told the Mineral Point Unified School District board that recent changes to the state school report card make direct year-to-year comparisons difficult and add new measures the district is monitoring, including test participation and a first-time third-grade reading report.

Presenter (speaker 2) explained how chronic absenteeism is calculated and why higher report-card star scores indicate lower chronic absenteeism, noting that ‘‘it means that 7.3 percent of our students are chronically absent, 92.7 percent are not chronically absent.’’ The presenter said states recently reset standard-setting and that some rating thresholds shifted (for example, the five-star cutoff moved from 83 to 84), so district leaders are cautious about treating this year’s scores as directly comparable to prior years.

The presentation highlighted two items newly reported this year: whether schools meet the 95% test-participation benchmark and a third-grade reading statistic (65.2% of the district’s third graders met or exceeded the Forward reading standard versus the statewide 50.3% average). Staff emphasized that the third-grade reading figure is being reported but was not included in the district’s overall composite score this year.

Building leaders described classroom and program responses. The elementary school noted using a newly adopted benchmark reading curriculum and piloting peer tutoring in January; middle-school leaders described co-teaching placements and plans to seek targeted professional development for the new math curriculum. High-school staff reviewed recent ACT practice-test outcomes for the senior cohort (a composite of 18.8 for the most recent seniors versus historic averages around 21), discussed which students met college benchmarks by subject and described boot-camp and dual-enrollment strategies used to raise readiness.

Board members questioned whether the third-grade reading measure will be folded into growth or achievement metrics in future years; staff said the state has not specified how the item will be used long term and that at least multiple years of data will be needed before any change. The board did not take formal action on assessment policy at the meeting.