Covington Schools internal reading, English language assessments show uneven progress

Covington Independent Public Schools reviewed data on reading assessments for grades kindergarten through six at the board of education meeting on Thursday. They also reviewed figures on the progress of students studying English as a foreign language, which the district refers to English language learners.

The reading assessment data suggests gradual improvement overall, although some grade levels have outsized portions of students who need intensive help. Namely, there was a high percentage of such students in grades 3 through 5. The English language learners’ data, on the other hand, suggested a very slight decline in the number of students improving their English well enough to cease English language instruction.

“In the past three years, we have made some significant gains with our early primary students that are coming through,” said Assistant Superintendent Scott Alter, who was sitting in for Superintendent Alvin Garrison. “It’s our more of our third, fourth and fifth graders right now [whose levels we are not moving] as well as we should be.”

Reading assessments track student abilities into three categories: on or above grade level (indicated in green in the charts below), on watch (indicated in yellow) and intervention (indicated in red). The levels Alter referenced in the above comments spoke of students in the intervention category. Students in the intervention category require more intensive instruction in reading, and numbers in the intensive category tend to be higher in the fall, immediately after summer vacation.

“So they’re lingering around 30% in that number. We need to get that number down to about 8% to 10%,” Alter said. “Right now we have 30% intensive students in schools, which is very hard for schools to serve that many students with interventions.”

The good news is that the number of students who read on or above grade level tends to increase throughout the year, according to the district’s analysis of students’ DIBELS scores. DIBELS is a raft of early literacy assessment tools out of the University of Oregon. Moreover, the overall percentage of students reading at or above grade level has been gradually increasing since the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year.

Alter said that students who were struggling would inevitably need more interventions if the district hoped to close the gap. This means more time with intensive instruction, and he stated that he had already reached out to several principals in the district to begin that planning process.

Board Member Stephen Gastright brought up the issue of increased intervention levels immediately after the summer and asked if it was possible to move more students into the summer program to help prevent learning loss.

Board president Tom Haggard said summer programs were clearly good for the students, but the current program couldn’t handle more.

“The data’s clear in that students who attend the summer program regularly don’t experience a summer slide,” Haggard said, “but it’s a capacity issue.”

The current summer program is capped at about 100 students. When board member Glenda Huff asked if the capacity could be increased, Alter said that the problem was, in short, money. Expanding the summer program would mean hiring more instructors, and the conversation at the meeting suggested the district didn’t currently have those funds available.

Internal assessments for other subjects and grade levels weren’t discussed. Furthermore, in spite of the improvements, the district’s state report card has flagged the district’s performance as either middling or poor, depending on the grade level. Moreover, overall student enrollment has been declining year over year, according to state data. The district expects to get results from this year’s state assessments in September.

As it relates to the English language program, there was a slight overall decline in the number of students exiting the program, from 43 in the ’22-’23 academic year to 38 in the ’23-’24 academic year. When a student exits the program, it means that they’ve demonstrated the ability to work among the general student population without specialized language instruction. The district monitors students for four years after exiting.

Susan Pastor-Richard, who's in charge of the district's English language program, said that these numbers coincided with an influx of newcomer students at Holmes Middle and High Schools, which may have skewed the numbers a bit. One hundred sixty-eight newcomers arrived at the middle and high school this year.

"They are coming with either limited education or no education from their country," said Pastor-Richard, "so in four months it's kind of hard to have an exit."

The number of students learning English as a foreign language has ballooned in the district over the last few years, especially at 6th District Elementary School, Holmes Middle School and Holmes High School. About 30% of the overall student population are English language learners.

Despite the slight decline in exited students, Kentucky's state report card has indicated comparatively high marks for the district in English language proficiency at the elementary and high school levels. Moreover, the district has recently begun integrating more robust interventions for English language learning into its pedagogy. In February at the behest of Pastor-Richard the district contracted with Dr. Hector Montenegro, a well-known teaching specialist, to advise on the needs of the district's English language learner population.

The district currently has 15 English language teachers, 5 instructional assistants, six dedicated translators and 24 ILA Pros, which are machines capable of providing real-time translations of spoken conversations between people speaking different languages. The district also provides special programs in the summer for newcomers.

"That's the good and the bad," Alter said, "but we do have a plan."