Wicomico County officials flag low kindergarten readiness scores, defend new online KRA and outline supports

District supervisors told the Wicomico County Board of Education that the state’s change in vendor and KRA process produced data the district has already used for local instructional planning, but that local conditions complicate comparisons with other counties.

Karen Hitch, one of the district supervisors who presented the findings, said the assessment window for Wicomico ran Sept. 24–Oct. 10 and that about 1,200 students were assessed. “As I said before, the new assessment was given at the start of the school year,” Hitch said, adding that the district immediately analyzed results and has used them to guide instruction.

A board member objected to giving an online assessment so early in kindergarten, saying, “I firmly believe that it is malpractice for us to insist that a kindergarten student at the beginning of a school year take an online assessment.” Presenters acknowledged the concern and described local steps intended to improve administration fidelity, including reducing group size for testing from the state’s recommended five students to two.

Presenter Melissa Eiler walked the board through sample ELA and early numeracy items and described classroom preparations — practice with iPads, headsets, and short focused digital tasks embedded in centers — intended to reduce test-administration barriers. She said the KRA includes three components: ELA, math and SABERS (a brief social–emotional teacher-observation screener). “It’s not a diagnostic tool, but it’s an early warning system that we can use to identify students who are in need of tier 2 or tier 3 behavior interventions, counseling, social workers or alternative programming,” Eiler said.

On performance, presenters explained the state’s new percentile-based cut points and reported statewide and district comparisons: Maryland reported roughly 57% of students in the ‘established’ range for ELA; Wicomico’s established rate was substantially lower. For math, MSDE reported 55.3% established statewide versus 35.3% in Wicomico. Hitch also reported local winter diagnostic growth on the district’s ELA tool: established-level students rose from about 33.8% in fall to roughly 51.6% in the winter diagnostic.

Board members pressed for school-level risk breakdowns and greater context about disparities. One member noted that Wicomico finished near the bottom of statewide rankings presented at the state board meeting; presenters said group size and sample differences matter — Wicomico assessed many more students than some counties — and agreed to provide more localized comparison data on request.

Discussion turned to supports for younger learners: members asked how many early-childhood coaches the district has and whether coaching should bridge pre-K and kindergarten. Presenters said the district currently has two coaches and described efforts to align curriculum and classroom practice between pre-K and kindergarten, adding that the district will continue to refine how it administers the assessment to improve fidelity and to run the ELA diagnostic again in the spring.

The KRA presentation concluded with staff describing Renaissance supports and localized professional learning sessions designed to help teachers use platform reports and intervention tools. The board thanked staff and moved on to budget review.