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Eagle County reports steady reading growth while math proficiency remains low, district says
Summary
In a July 8 presentation, district assessment lead Melissa Riwantoll said local benchmark data show steady reading growth but continued gaps in math: roughly half of students meet the district reading benchmark while about one in five met state‑aligned math standards cited in the presentation; PSAT, SAT and CMAS state results are embargoed until mid‑August.
Melissa Riwantoll, speaking to the Eagle County School District Board on July 8, presented end‑of‑year local assessment results and said the district is seeing steady reading growth in many grades while math proficiency remains an area needing improvement.
Riwantoll told trustees the district’s Renaissance (STAR/DIBELS) reporting shows roughly 50–51% of tested students meeting the district’s reading benchmark on the vendor’s normalized scale and about 47% meeting the Renaissance math benchmark. She said the state‑aligned math measure cited during the presentation showed "the spring was, almost 21% meeting those state standards in math." The district will receive official PSAT, SAT and CMAS results after the Colorado State Board of Education lifts an embargo in mid‑August.
Riwantoll highlighted success in early literacy work funded in part by a Comprehensive State Literacy Development grant and by a separate early literacy grant that will expand screening and interventions into Edwards and Gypsum elementary schools next year. She showed cohort‑level gains in kindergarten where early literacy strategies and additional coaching produced large year‑over‑year improvements in the district benchmark at several schools.
To address math gaps, the district is expanding access to Math 180 and a math learning cohort supported by the Colorado Department of Education; Riwantoll said roughly 40 teachers will participate in the coming year, up from about 20 the prior year. She also described summer interventions, a hybrid program serving about 200 students that pairs online assignments with weekly 1:1 tutoring, and a donor‑funded Math Academy pilot at Edwards that ran June 1–July 31.
Trustees asked how the district benchmark differs from Colorado State Standards; Riwantoll explained Renaissance benchmarks are nationally normalized and do not map one‑for‑one to every Colorado standard, which is why the state CMAS results are still important for full context. She said the district will return in August to present official statewide results when they are available.
Next steps: staff will present the statewide PSAT/SAT/CMAS data to trustees once the embargo lifts and continue monitoring literacy and math intervention outcomes.
