Riverside Local sees modest proficiency gains; board weighs curriculum and coaching steps

Curriculum staff presented preliminary state assessment data and told the Riverside Local curriculum committee that overall scores are close to last year but show pockets of growth, particularly in middle-school math and ELA.

"This is preliminary data," Katie Line Weaver, the district's curriculum supervisor, said, noting the figures must be cleaned and matched to student records before public release. She said sixth- and eighth-grade math grew by about 8% and 7%, respectively, and ELA proficiency rose roughly 4%. "Another big area of growth was biology," she added.

Weaver said those percentages reflect the share of students scoring proficient or above on the assessments and cautioned some grade-level dips (notably fourth-grade language arts and seventh-grade math) are likely linked to implementation of new curricula rather than long-term declines. "When we implement brand-new curriculum, we often expect an implementation slide. We really did not see that broadly," she said.

Staff described curriculum changes now in place: Benchmark for grades 3 6 (ELA) and CPM for grades 6 8 and honors Algebra I. To sustain CPM locally, the district will pay to train Sarah Halbs, the district math coach, through a "train-the-trainer" arrangement so she can coach teachers internally rather than repeatedly contracting outside trainers.

District staff and board members said results varied by classroom fidelity: teachers who "bought in" and followed CPM closely tended to see better outcomes. Board members urged the staff to track cohorts over time rather than comparing single-year snapshots, and asked for final, color-coded charts and performance-index calculations for a fall board presentation.

The committee also requested staff prepare public-facing comparisons with similar districts and to use the district's analytics tools to examine spending, staffing and outcome differences. Weaver and other staff said they will refine the PI calculations over the summer and return with visualized trends when data are finalized.