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Lake Forest SD 67 calls fall MAP a baseline as leaders highlight strong percentile results
Summary
District administrators told the board that the district moved MAP testing to the fall to establish a baseline and reported high median percentiles in several grades, while noting new test norms and cut scores complicate direct year-to-year comparisons.
Dr. Renee Fitzsimmons, presenting the superintendent's fall assessment report, told the Lake Forest School District 67 Board on Oct. 28 that the district shifted MAP testing to the fall to create an instructional benchmark for the year.
"So we switched our testing to fall... it's gonna be a baseline for us. This is the first time that we're doing this," Dr. Fitzsimmons said, describing the change as intended to guide instruction and interventions.
Fitzsimmons and other administrators flagged several headline figures from the fall MAP results and accompanying displays. The presentation noted new MAP 2025 national norms and state cut-score changes, which mean administrators are treating the results as a baseline rather than a direct apples-to-apples comparison with prior years. Among the highlights cited: the incoming current sixth-grade cohort performed at the 74th median national percentile in reading, and the fifth-grade math median percentile was reported at the 85th nationally.
Administrators said relatively few students—approximately 2%—were in the 1st–20th percentile and emphasized supports for those learners through the district's MTSS (multi-tiered systems of support) interventions and progress monitoring (FastBridge), with a winter MAP check planned in January to measure growth.
Superintendent leadership framed the fall data as a starting point: further interpretation will come after winter assessments and when the state report card (which reflects different collection windows and cut scores) is released. The fall report and supporting materials are scheduled to be posted on the district website for community review.
