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Jefferson Elementary principal presents reading gains, sets proficiency goals for students in poverty
Summary
Jefferson Elementary Principal Kelsey told the Pullman School Board that literacy benchmarks are improving districtwide, citing first‑grade fluency benchmarks and year‑to‑date proficiency gains among students living in poverty and setting end‑of‑year targets for ELA and math.
Kelsey, principal of Jefferson Elementary, told the Pullman School District board that recent reading and assessment data show notable gains for early‑grade students and for students living in poverty. She said first‑grade fluency is measured against a 39‑words‑per‑minute benchmark and offered classroom examples of students who have moved from nonfluent to increasingly fluent readers.
“We want our first graders to see themselves as readers,” Kelsey said, and she tied the classroom work to the district’s school improvement plan. She highlighted classroom benchmarks in which one first‑grade class had 10 of 15 students at or above the 39 words‑per‑minute fluency benchmark at a March checkpoint, and she noted growth across multiple grade levels in fall‑to‑winter proficiency measures for students identified as living in poverty.
Kelsey laid out the school’s end‑of‑year targets: “our end of year goal ... is 60 percent of our students in third through fifth grade that are living in poverty will be proficient in ELA and then 50 percent in math,” she told the board. She and classroom teachers credited the gains to focused small‑group instruction, data tracking, and behavioral supports that encourage students to set learning goals.
Students joined the presentation with brief remarks and demonstration of exit‑ticket practices and goal setting; one fourth grader described using pretests and posttests and tracking progress in targeted areas. The board members who attended the classroom visit said the in‑person collaboration and students’ use of growth vocabulary indicated durable gains that should ease transitions to middle and high school.
The principal distributed a handout connecting these results to the school improvement plan and said the data shared in March are interim measures, not final year outcomes. The school will continue to monitor progress through the spring and report back to the board on whether the district meets the stated 2026–27 goals.
