El Rancho Unified reports measurable I‑Ready gains, plans shorter diagnostics next year

El Rancho Unified School District staff presented an end‑of‑year review of I‑Ready diagnostic results and planned changes to the assessment program. Presenters said teacher survey responses found 89% of respondents agreed the I‑Ready data is useful and that the vendor's new I‑Ready Inform format will reduce testing time (math diagnostics by 18–45% and reading diagnostics by up to 36% in some grades) beginning in the 2026–27 school year.

Miss Jasmine Chavez Diaz, who led the presentation, said the district used the data to set both typical growth targets and higher “stretch” targets for students who started the year below grade level. "Stretch growth is an ambitious annual goal assigned to students who begin the year below grade level," she said. Staff reported measurable cohort movement: in elementary mathematics, grade‑two number operations performance rose from 10% to 54% (a 44‑point improvement) and third‑grade number operations rose from 12% to 52% (a 40‑point gain). Districtwide, 46% of 2,499 assessed elementary students met their typical annual math growth while 21% achieved stretch growth.

Presenters also highlighted elementary reading progress: among 2,481 assessed students, roughly half met typical growth in foundational areas such as phonics, and fourth‑ and fifth‑grade gains in informational‑text comprehension exceeded national averages by about five percentage points. For middle schools, staff reported that 39% of assessed students met typical math growth and 15% met stretch growth; seventh grade in particular posted double‑digit gains in number sense and algebraic thinking.

Trustees pressed staff on implementation challenges, especially the time teachers must find for diagnostics and teacher training. A presenter acknowledged early pushback and said the district provided multiple training sessions and is refining schedules and uses of interventionists. On alignment with state assessments, staff said I‑Ready will remain the district screener while standards‑aligned Focus Interim Assessment Blocks (FIABs) drawn from CAASPP will serve as interim checks; final CAASPP results due in October will allow the district to report correlations.

The district said it will share disaggregated demographic fields beginning this fall after adding the necessary fields in ClassLink so staff can report subgroup results. Trustees asked for follow‑up reports linking I‑Ready cohort movement to later CAASPP/CAST outcomes when state data are available.