Dear Summit View Families,

With Parent-Teacher conferences in the near future I wanted to address the new assessment data that you will receive as part of the conferences. Part of our assessment program is called AIMSweb. This is a reading assessment that measures early literacy skills, reading fluency, and comprehension depending on the grade of the student. I have created a podcast that will help you make sense of the report that you will get at conferences. 

I also want to share with you where we are at in the assessment process so that you will understand the long term goals of our assessment program. Right now we are in the early stages of collecting and analyzing our data. We have identified struggling learners and have started interventions in many cases. Our long term goal is to analyze the growth trajectory to ensure that students make at least one years growth. We should have sufficient data in January and February to start working towards this end. As the data becomes more revealing, we will work to build capacity and adjust instruction and/or materials to meet the needs of students. This is the first time that we have assessed with this level of detail. We do not have all the answers yet, but are working hard to find solutions for the information that the assessments give us. 

Please help us as we progress through this process by making sure that you keep these assessments in perspective. AIMSweb is a powerful tool over time. Each individual assessment is not comprehensive and several variables can affect the individual test result. This will account for the "saw-tooth" effect that will be on some of the results. It is similar to taking your blood pressure daily: depending on if you are rested or stressed at any given time, there will be natural fluctuations. Only over time do you get accurate readings. Until January or February, we will not have the accuracy we need to adjust our work to meet the needs of individual students. You will start to get these assessments on a regular basis so that you can monitor your student and to help you engage in a meaningful way to help your student. You will also get a STAR report that will give direction on what you can do at home to help your student with reading.

If you need any further information about our assessments after you have your parent teacher conferences, please call Carol McCoy and schedule a time for us to speak. After mid-year, I will schedule an assessment night, similar to the math night to help families understand the steps we are taking to make sure all students make at least a years growth.

Sincerely,

Ron Schumacher