Stanfield SD 61 reports phonics-driven reading gains, flags test-administration issues

Lacy, the district administrator, presented this year’s reading assessment packet and told the board the district has seen “tons of growth” in reading after prioritizing phonics and high‑frequency words. She said the phonics work is intended to support later comprehension and that staff have been creating more opportunities to build students’ background knowledge so they can better understand grade‑level text.

Lacy said the phonics work focused on letter–sound instruction while phonological awareness work addressed auditory manipulation of sounds — “if I say cat and I say replace the c with a b, what word do you have?” she explained as a way to illustrate instructional targets. She also described subgroup challenges: a higher share of special‑education students and several monolingual students in fifth grade who have been in the country three years or less, which makes the test more difficult to interpret for those learners.

Board members and staff raised questions about anomalous score changes. Lacy recounted that staff pulled some students aside and “there were a couple kids that were honest and said like, ‘No, that you know, I cheated.’” She and the board identified differences in testing room conditions and rollout procedures as likely controllable factors and recommended standardizing administration practices next year to reduce variance between rooms.

Why it matters: the district said early literacy progress is improving at elementary grades, but secondary growth remains slower and is sensitive to cohort composition and testing procedures. The board asked staff to pursue consistent proctoring protocols and to examine how late‑arriving students (11 new students tested at year end) affect strategic‑level scoring and reported percentages.