Board hears ELA gains and presses staff on RTI consistency, subgroup gaps and AIS supports

The Port Washington Union Free School District presented districtwide ELA results and updates to its RTI/MTSS procedures at a June board meeting while board members pressed for clearer subgroup targets, staffing details and procedures to track student movement between intervention tiers.

Staff said overall ELA proficiency rose to 74% (reported by staff as a change from 68% the previous year) and noted an expected rise in participation because the district collected roughly 110 fewer opt‑outs than the prior year. Officials said subscores remain below desired levels and will guide targeted interventions.

Board members asked whether the district had a specific proficiency target. Staff replied that an RTI lens uses an 80% floor for Tier 1 instruction (the percentage of students the universal program should meet) and that, given the district’s capacity and staff, an internal expectation would be closer to 85–90% over time. Staff also acknowledged persistent gaps for English‑language learners and students with disabilities and said those gaps were partly expected for ELLs because of the nature of English‑language testing.

Staff described steps to improve consistency across buildings: more regular IST (instructional support team) meetings, common forms developed in partnership with Catalyst Learning, and a clearer schedule of review cycles (recommended 8–12 weeks for intervention review). They said ISTs will share common documentation to align decision making across the five elementary schools and that the district plans more unified Tier 1 supports to shrink variability between schools.

The board asked about measuring student progression through tiers (for example, how students move from Tier 3 to Tier 2 and eventually exit interventions). Staff said they are building systems to track movement and will be able to report progression data over the next one to two years, but cautioned that instructional shifts and adoption of new curricula can temporarily change numbers as teachers learn new practices.

On staffing, staff said the RTI plan calls for Tier 3 groups of about three students (meeting four times per week) and Tier 2 groups of roughly five to six students (meeting about two times per week). The district has budgeted for one additional elementary AIS math teacher and will finalize elementary and AIS staffing recommendations by July 16, after reviewing June diagnostic data and kindergarten enrollment trends.

Board members raised questions about equity and disproportionality in subgroup reporting and about how multiple categories (for example, a student who is both Hispanic and an English learner) affect published subgroup percentages. Staff explained state reporting rules limit the district’s ability to cross‑tabulate multiple subgroup intersections in regular state reports and said the committee will continue internal analyses to understand overlap effects.

The meeting included community questions about how the new knowledge‑building curricula will serve advanced learners and how transfer of knowledge is taught; staff described built‑in scaffolds and extended‑learning opportunities for advanced students, and reiterated that resource‑room and AIS instruction is intended to supplement classroom instruction rather than replace general‑education expectations.