Liz Earhart, the district's data lead, presented the fall 2025 MAP benchmarking and an ECRA-derived growth summary at the Oct. 16 board meeting. Earhart emphasized that fall testing is administered at 0 weeks of instruction and that NWEA re-normed MAP to 2025 norms, which affects percent-meeting-benchmark comparisons to prior years.

"Fall data is gathered with the furthest distance from in school instruction," Earhart said, noting that ECRA uses prior accumulated assessment data to create individual propensity-score projections. She told the board the district also incorporates IAR results into growth models and that the apparent improvement in percentages meeting benchmark is partly attributable to the norming change.

Earhart said district elementary sites showed expected or higher-than-expected fall growth in reading and mathematics, with Whittier highlighted for higher-than-expected math growth. To strengthen mathematics instruction at the middle-school level, the district is piloting two resources: Carnegie Math and Amplify Desmos. Earhart said both pilots will gather teacher and student feedback before any adoption decision.

Board members asked about how renorming affects comparisons year to year. Earhart and other administrators explained that scale (RIT) scores remain comparable even as percentile rankings shift, and recommended focusing on growth measures while watching the percent-meeting-benchmark metric as norms settle.

Next steps: a deeper district IAR review and more detailed school improvement plans will be presented at the October curriculum workshop and at the Nov. 10 board meeting.