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The school board held a regular meeting/workshop on Sept. 23. During the workshop, board members heard reports on students reading at grade level and proficiency and student growth percentile.
Reading at Grade Level
Director of Teaching and Learning Suzy Kontos discussed how reading at grade level is reported to the state and how students are identified for additional services. According to Washington state law, districts must report whether all students in grades K-4 are reading at grade level.
Teachers identify whether students are reading at grade level by looking at STAR Early Literacy and STAR Reading data and cross referencing with one of three other assessments: the benchmark assessment from the district's reading curriculum ("Reach for Reading"), the Fountas & Pinnell benchmark assessment, or the Smarter Balanced English language arts (ELA) assessment (only an option for grades three and four).
Teachers ultimately use their professional judgement, along with data, to determine if students should be reported as reading at grade level.
Proficiency and Student Growth Percentile
Director of Assessment and Program Evaluation Brian Gabele briefed the board on student growth and performance on last year's Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA) as well as some new metrics posted on the Washington State Report Card.
Gabele provided a brief overview on Student Growth Percentiles (SGPs) and demonstrated how it is possible for a classroom of students to experience amazing gains on an assessment but still not move the needle on percent meeting standard, which is the metric most people are familiar with to gauge the quality of a school district. Instead, Gabele shared how SGPs capture and contextualize the growth of each student.
"We should focus less on what students’ proficiency levels are when arriving or leaving our classrooms, but, instead, focus on how much those students grow while they are in them," Gabele said.
In the presentation, Gabele shared district level median SGPs from 2018, 2019, 2023 and 2024 for each grade level and subject. Additionally, he highlighted successes at individual schools in CPSD. Ten CPSD schools showed higher than average growth in ELA on the 2024 SBA as measured by their median SGPs, while six CPSD schools showed higher than average growth in math.
Gabele also highlighted CPSD’s biggest assessment-related challenge: lower growth performance of its middle school grades, which are all within the lowest 25% in the state. The district is working to address these challenges now to preserve the solid academic gains that our elementary students have been making after they enter middle school in the years to come.
The presentation concluded with an overview of changes to the way the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) describes the four performance levels of the SBA. Traditionally, Levels 1 and 2 were classified as “Not Meeting Standard” while Levels 3 and 4 were classified as “Meeting Standard.”
To address misunderstandings amongst some members of the public who perceived students scoring at a Level 2 or below as illiterate, OSPI worked with a state data team to show that more than 50% of high school students who scored a Level 2 on the math SBA went on to enroll in either a two- or four-year post-secondary degree program.
This finding led to OSPI rebranding of each of the SBA Performance Levels. Students scoring Level 2 would no longer be classified as “below grade level” but instead, are now classified as “students showing foundational knowledge and skills” while those scoring Level 3 who were classified as “at grade level” are now classified as “students on track for college-level learning without needing remedial classes.”
This description appears on the OSPI’s Washington State Report Card but will not change the way the state grades each school’s performance nor will it adjust the SBA cut scores required for a student to graduate using the SBA graduation pathway.
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