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District outlines attendance and literacy push; teams report targeted interventions and benchmark gains
Summary
Assistant principals and RTI staff told the board about coordinated attendance strategies (shared tracking, nudge letters, home visits, tiered interventions) and literacy benchmark monitoring showing mixed but actionable growth; the board asked for district and school-level targets.
District staff presented a combined update on attendance interventions and literacy monitoring that the board described as a core part of its district objectives.
Assistant principals, joined by consultant Ross Davis (LBL/ESD), outlined a districtwide attendance strategy that emphasizes shared tracking systems, tiered interventions (including monthly school attendance teams and ‘‘attendance action logs’’), targeted communications, home visits and family meetings. Monthly incentives such as extra recess or grade-level rewards were described as part of a behavioral approach intended to nudge attendance upward. Staff said interventions have produced measurable improvements for individual students but that districtwide movement remains an ongoing effort.
"We all sent out a letter in January ... then we are all doing nudge letters, just hitting certain groups of students at certain levels to try to get them to know where their attendance is at and try to nudge them," one presenter said.
On literacy, RTI and reading staff (including Molly and Emily) reviewed three-times-per-year benchmark data. They reported positive movement in some grades and measures—examples included fluency percentile gains for cohorts between fall and winter and improvements in comprehension in other grades—while noting participation and test-type differences can skew comparisons. Staff described ongoing six- to eight-week review cycles for students in intervention and emphasized the value of local benchmark assessments for real-time instructional adjustments.
Board members urged the staff to set districtwide or school-level numeric targets; one board member asked for a 5 percentage point improvement goal to show progress. Staff agreed to return with recommendations and more precise targets at the next meeting.
Next steps: staff will continue monitoring interventions, refine data tracking, and present recommended attendance and literacy targets in the coming month.
