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Chelsea School District staff report partial gains on portrait, safety upgrades and K'8 literacy
Summary
District staff told the board the 25'26 goals showed mixed progress: a districtwide Portrait of a Graduate has been integrated K'12, new safety hardware and a web-based mental-health hub are in place, and K'8 literacy showed pockets of gain with targeted interventions for K'5 students.
District staff presented a year-end update to the Chelsea Board of Education on the district's three 2025'26 goals, reporting progress on a Portrait of a Graduate initiative, new safety measures and early gains in K'8 literacy interventions.
Michelle (district staff) said the Portrait of a Graduate moved from concept to a K'12 framework this year, with work beginning in preschool and continuing through high school. She said teachers embedded durable skills into curriculum and that, for K'5, the district introduced a report-card measure so parents could see those skills on student reports. "We were able to create a reportable measure with our portrait of graduate work and ... that was a new feature this year and I think was really well received by our parents," she said.
On safety and mental health, Marcus (district staff) described tier-one physical-security upgrades across buildings'hundreds of new cameras, a visitor-management system and "knock boxes" that give first responders secure access to building keys. He also highlighted a new mental-health resource hub developed by youth mental health coordinator Marie Larson and web staff Alice Stacy that is currently listed under Family Resources and will be made more prominent. "We now have a hub where people can log in. It's active," Marcus said, adding that the site lists community partners and district counseling personnel.
Michelle and Marcus outlined literacy work the district calls a K'8 goal: increasing NWEA growth targets and focusing support on at-risk students and students with IEPs. Staff said the district implemented MTSS processes and the SIPs intervention program, and launched the Collaborative Classroom K'5 literacy curriculum. Michelle reported that about 28% of K'5 students received reading interventions this year and that kindergarten proficiency was 76%, with a South third-grade cohort at 74%. "Every single cohort across the district either sustained or increased in achievement," she said.
Staff also briefed the board on data systems and professional development: the district introduced a data warehouse (referred to in the presentation as "school litics") with 1,832 entries used for tracking interventions, and said it will develop dashboards to support live monitoring of student progress and transitions between buildings.
Board members asked for more disaggregated data and for statistical context on year-to-year differences. One member recommended staff bring standard-deviation or error-band information to the July 20 work session to clarify whether percentage changes are statistically meaningful. Staff said an abbreviated community update will be scheduled in the next two weeks and the board work session remains planned for July 20 to set 26'27 goals.
The presentation concluded with next steps: continued Collaborative Classroom support, additional teacher training for sixth-grade SIPs implementation, broader roll-out of the mental-health hub and follow-up data review at the July work session.
