Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Literacy Screener topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
St. Bernard Parish reports mostly positive K–3 literacy screener results; district outlines third-grade retention process
Summary
At a school board committee meeting, literacy supervisor Dr. Sarta Lamacha reported K–3 literacy screener rates with 72–77% of students scoring on or above level across grades; she said 84 of about 560 third-graders scored 'well below,' 55 received good-cause exemptions and 20 students will retest and may be retained under state policy.
Dr. Sarta Lamacha, the district’s literacy supervisor, told the St. Bernard Parish School Board general committee that kindergarten through third-grade students performed largely at or above grade level on this year’s literacy screener.
“Kindergarten, 77% of our students are on or above level,” Lamacha said, and added that first grade was 75%, second grade 73% and third grade 72% on or above level. She provided subgroup figures, reporting that about 46% of special-education students and roughly 70–89% of English-language-proficient (LEP) cohorts scored on or above level depending on grade.
Lamacha explained the district’s process for third graders who score in the lowest category, “well below.” Under current state policy, students scoring well below are given three additional opportunities—retests during the last five days of school, intensive summer intervention and a final reassessment—that must be exhausted before a retention decision. “Right now, of our 560 third-grade students, 84 of them scored at that well below level,” she said; 55 of those students met ‘good cause’ exemptions (for example, students with IEPs, recent LEP enrollees, or alternate-assessment students), leaving 20 non-exempt students who will retest and may participate in summer remediation.
Board members asked for details about the reassessment (Lamacha: “It is the entire assessment”), timing, and accommodations. Lamacha noted screening timing is designed to measure fluency and automaticity—many items are timed and do not include extended testing time even when those accommodations exist for summative assessments. She described grade-level emphases: kindergarten focuses on letter naming and phonemic awareness, first grade on phonics/decoding and fluency, and second and third grades include comprehension in addition to decoding and fluency.
The presentation concluded after board members commended staff and asked for clarifications on the reassessment process and intervention supports. No formal action was taken beyond the informational presentation.
Next steps: the district will retest the identified third-graders during the last five days of school, provide summer intensive interventions and reassess at the end of the summer program, following state procedures for retention.
