Trustees press staff to move beyond STAR and explore cohort tracking with EducClimber

Trustees spent a sustained portion of the workshop probing how the district measures student growth and which assessments should count toward success indicators. Several trustees expressed concern that STAR’s portal does not report cohort data well and that year-to-year snapshots can miss longer-term growth for individual students.

Rob, a district staff presenter, said STAR remains a useful universal screener for identifying students who need classroom intervention, but admitted STAR’s dashboard has limited cohort-reporting features. He said the district is piloting EducClimber, a Renaissance data-visualization product that can aggregate multiple assessments (STAR, Go Math, MDTP, local unit tests) and display cohort trends, though it requires scripting and integration work to pull in non‑Renaissance tools.

Trustees asked staff to return in May with concrete options: revised success-indicator language that allows multiple measures and cohort tracking, a feasibility analysis of using EducClimber for districtwide cohort reporting, and a plan for any transition costs and required staff training. Trustees emphasized they did not intend to remove screening tools that drive classroom interventions, but wanted metrics that better reflect student growth over multiple years.

Staff said they will attempt to draft a cohort-based success indicator (for example, tracking band movement between grade levels) and will present feasibility, timeline and cost information at the next study-session timetable.