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District reports mixed assessment gains, says current data too limited to judge 4-day school week
Summary
District staff presented spring STAR and ISAT results showing modest districtwide gains in reading and math and grade-level pockets of strong growth; administrators said two years of data are insufficient to judge long-term effects of the 4-day student week and recommended continued monitoring and team-level inquiry.
The Teton School District presented spring student-assessment results on June 11, reporting modest year-to-year increases and recommending further monitoring before linking changes to the district's 4-day student week.
Superintendent Brian Ashton opened the presentation by thanking teachers and staff for the year and said the district would share a fuller data report in July. District assessment staff reviewed STAR (interim) and ISAT (summative) results and described growth metrics used to measure change from fall to spring.
"A high rating for that rate of improvement would be increasing the percentile rank of where you were by eight plus," said the assessment lead, explaining the district's definition of strong growth. The presentation highlighted that kindergarten and some early grades showed strong growth, while third grade and certain transition grades (notably fifth-to-sixth) showed weaker patterns.
The analysis noted that about 67.2% of students showed at least typical growth on STAR reading (defined here as at or above the 35th percentile) and that roughly 40% of students reached the district's "make-change" threshold (65th percentile) in at least some grades. District math proficiency on STAR rose roughly 3.5% year-to-year, with about 43% of students attaining make-change growth in math.
On ISAT, presenters reminded trustees that the test is a different, summative measure and described how STAR's renorming after spring 2023 changed some fall-to-spring comparisons. "Once they re-normed it, we have a much more steady growth," the assessment lead said, adding that renorming reduced the earlier "yo-yo" effect seen between school-year and summer scores.
Board members and staff discussed whether the 4-day student week is producing measurable effects. "I won't change my mind: we won't know for 10 years," one trustee said during the meeting. District staff advised the board to watch multi-year trends and to engage grade-level teams in targeted analysis of grades that showed notable gains (fourth and seventh) or dips (third, the fifth-to-sixth transition).
Next steps include sharing the full data packet in July, encouraging team-level review of promising grade-level practices and tracking cohorts over time to look for persistent trends rather than relying on single-year snapshots.
