District officials reviewed statewide and local assessment results at the school board meeting, saying the district’s performance shows an overall upward trajectory even as some grades dipped.

At the meeting a district presenter summarized spring NSCAS results and ACT performance for juniors and said the district is “definitely headed in the right direction” from 2020 through last spring. The presentation highlighted year-to-year growth in some grades and pilot teacher gains after adopting new instructional materials.

The board also heard an explanation of Aquest, the state classification system tied to federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) subgroup indicators. The presenter listed recent school-level designations: Bloomfield had been a CSI school but “dropped their CSI status completely,” Ralston Middle had multiple subgroups needing improvement, Wildwood and Meadows had subgroup designations tied to EL and special-education metrics, and Ralston High received a one-year TSI designation in English Learner performance.

On chronic absenteeism, the district reported a reduction below its goal: “We originally started with about 35 percent almost chronic absenteeism as a rate. Our goal was to get to that 29.3 percent, and we beat that by over 3%,” the presenter said.

Staff outlined next steps for schools with multi-year ATSI designations, including continuing targeted interventions and monitoring winter-data returns in January. The district emphasized classroom-level work: professional-learning teams are using preACT and IXL-embedded practice, PLT teams are dissecting practice questions with students, and pilot teachers using new math materials showed notable gains on spring assessments.

The superintendent and board members stressed that some metric changes (for example, free-and-reduced counts) likely reflect reporting shifts rather than large demographic changes, and they flagged ongoing work on summer-school options and additional professional learning. Board members asked for the winter assessment window results once available; staff said winter testing data should be ready in January.