The Carroll Community School District (CCSD) Board of Education reviewed district testing data from the past school year, noting improvements in many individual students’ scores compared to previous years. Statewide testing is required of districts to determine if students from preschool through 11th grade are meeting standards in subjects such as reading, math, and science. Adams Elementary Principal and Director of Special Education Amy Collison said there are two types of tests implemented: screening and achievement.
Screening tests include IGDIS, given to preschoolers to assess skills such as letter recognition, phonological awareness, comprehension, and early numeracy knowledge, including counting, quantity comparison, and number naming. Collison says the administration is considering proposing to implement Fastbridge earlyReading and earlyMath for preschool to match the succeeding grade levels. Achievement tests include ISASP, which evaluates students’ understanding of Iowa Academic Standards in ELA, math, and science, measuring proficiency and growth. Collison said the concerns she has been hearing from teachers and staff are related to the scores on the NWEA, which measures growth in math, reading, and science. Most grade levels, from 5th through 11th grade, are reporting proficiency rates of less than 70 percent in those topics.
Board member Jim Friel asked what had happened, as he believes a majority of students at CCSD used to be proficient, and now everything has changed. Collison said that while that could have been the case, testing and standards look very different now than they did ten years ago.
The district’s next steps include curriculum changes and alignment across grade levels, schedule changes to add more instructional time, professional development plans, and assessment choices to best gather the data needed to make critical decisions for academic instruction. Middle school students will see an increase from a 50-minute to a 90-minute reading block and 60 minutes for reading and science. Data will be brought back to the school board expected around August of this year to compare CCSD to the State of Iowa.
