Creighton presents annual progress-monitoring report: mixed interim results, planned assessment changes

Creighton School District staff presented the district's Annual Progress Monitoring report, reviewing four district goals, the interim measures used to monitor progress and a set of proposed adjustments to assessments and interventions.

Administration told the board the district set ambitious targets (including a 15-point annual math growth goal) and that preliminary, state-linked results showed meaningful improvement — an 11-point gain on the math measure — though the district fell short of its 15-point target. Presenters repeatedly cautioned the data were preliminary and would be finalized in August once full state files were reconciled.

District staff said the biggest source of uncertainty was imperfect alignment among interim benchmark tools (DNA, FastBridge, and others) and the state assessment. To address that, administration proposed several changes for the coming year: adopt STAR Reading (Kindergarten 6 grade 3) and maintain DNA for certain grades; replace FastBridge with STAR as the adaptive growth measure; reduce one internal benchmark window (IBM1) to relieve testing burden; and schedule post-benchmark tests before the state testing window so teachers get actionable information earlier.

Administrators described actions already under way: refining interim measures, piloting an AzELLA "mimic" this year for better ELL diagnostics, replicating the successful SEI coaching cohort that contributed to strong multilingual outcomes, and packaging next-year interim measures for board review in August.

Principals from multiple schools presented school-level reflections that reinforced district themes: (1) teacher clarity and PLC use are central to progress, (2) layered inputs (professional development, in-class coaching, PLCs) produce stronger effect sizes than PD alone, and (3) targeted small-group instruction and tutoring partnerships (for example, an Ignite tutoring partnership used at several schools) contributed to measurable gains in specific cohorts.

Board members asked for follow-up detail on several items the district pledged to provide: finalized, validated state data when available; disaggregated lists showing which grade levels and cohorts drove the multilingual gains; and a plan for evaluating the efficacy of new benchmark tools once in place.

What this means: The district is signaling a shift away from using multiple, poorly aligned interim tools toward a smaller set of better-aligned diagnostics and a tighter cycle of progress monitoring. The board will consider any recommendation to "sunset" a goal at an August study session once final data and proposed interim measures are available.