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Magnolia Middle credited with rapid gains after focused MTSS, common planning
Summary
Principal and district leaders told the State Board of Education that Magnolia Middle School used a built-in MTSS period, tiered instruction and regular common planning to produce double-digit gains in reading and math proficiency year over year and to be named one of the state's "bright spot" schools.
Magnolia Middle School's leadership told the Delaware State Board of Education on Nov. 20 that the school's recent test-score gains came from a deliberate mix of daily MTSS time, data-driven interventions and shared planning time for teachers.
"That is why we're here," said Dr. Corey Mythless, superintendent of the Caesar Rodney School District, describing the district's focus on student achievement and the district's decision to build sustained intervention time into the middle-school day. Magnolia's principal and staff said the school added an MTSS period used for screening, targeted instruction and short-cycle assessments.
School leaders walked the board through how they tier students (Tier 1 enrichment, Tier 2 "boot camps" for near-grade-level students and intensive Tier 3 intervention), how they run one-week cycles of pre-assess, targeted mini-lessons and post-assessments, and how common planning by content and grade level lets teachers coordinate interventions. Crystal Ray, a special-education teacher and reading specialist at Magnolia, described running tightly differentiated ELA groups and working with a math colleague to rotate students through adjacent classrooms.
Presenters told the board that when the superintendent arrived the school's baseline was "about 36%" proficient in ELA and "about 17%" proficient in math. They said the school recorded gains of roughly 15 percentage points in ELA and about 17 points in math in the most recent year, which the presenters cited as evidence that their MTSS structures, common planning and peer walkthroughs produced measurable growth.
The presentation emphasized people and routines: intentional hiring, targeted professional learning, peer walkthroughs and a building leadership team that sets priorities and monitors progress. The principal described a schoolwide vocabulary strategy (tier 2 and tier 3 academic words posted across classrooms) and a regular "bridal reading time" (a supervised daily reading period) to build fluency.
Board members congratulated the school and noted that growth can look different from absolute proficiency. The superintendent and principal said Magnolia has more work ahead and set internal goals for continuing progress.
The board did not take formal action on the presentation; board members asked questions about staffing, demographics and replicability, and the panel invited board members to visit the school.
The next item on the agenda was the state accountability presentation and the board's regular business.
