Roosevelt School District No. 66 presented a progress monitoring update to the Governing Board on September 1, highlighting early reading data connected to Goals 1 and 3. The update provided a starting point for the 2026–2027 school year and outlined how the district will use the results to strengthen instruction and provide timely support to students.
Goal 1 calls for increasing fourth-grade English Language Arts proficiency from 20% to 45% by August 2028, while Goal 3 seeks to increase seventh-grade proficiency from 22% to 45% during the same period. Because state testing results are not available until later in the year, the district is monitoring leading indicators in third and sixth grades that educators can act on now.
Spring 2026 results established the district’s baseline. Among third-grade students, 16.8% were proficient or highly proficient on the AASA English Language Arts assessment. Sixth-grade students achieved a proficiency rate of 20.8%. The data also identified a continued need for targeted support among English learners and students receiving Exceptional Student Services.
Beginning-of-year results showed several encouraging areas of growth. Third-grade passage oral reading performance increased by 3.8 percentage points compared with fall 2025. STAR Reading performance also improved in grades 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8, with grade 2 increasing by 3.3 percentage points and grade 7 increasing by 2.6 points.
The district also identified schools showing positive fall-to-fall growth. C.O. Greenfield Academy of Design and Innovation, Sunland STEAM Academy and Irene Lopez Academy of the Arts demonstrated gains in STAR Reading. Bernard Black Entrepreneurial Academy, John F. Kennedy Academy of Inquiry and T.G. Barr Academy of Global Studies showed gains in STAR Early Literacy. District leaders will study these bright spots to identify successful practices that may be strengthened and replicated across schools.
At the same time, the results show that additional work is needed. The percentage of students meeting passage oral reading benchmarks decreased slightly in grades 1 and 2, while fifth-grade STAR Reading performance declined by 3.6 percentage points. Districtwide, 59.8% of the monitored third-grade cohort and 57.9% of the sixth-grade cohort were identified as minimally proficient in STAR Reading—both above the district’s targeted percentages.
In response, Roosevelt will focus on consistent foundational reading instruction, including phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding and fluency. Schools will use screening, diagnostic and progress-monitoring data to form intervention groups and adjust support as students’ needs change.
In the middle grades, the district will emphasize close reading, academic vocabulary, language objectives and instructional scaffolds. STAR Reading and Navvy Reading assessments will help educators monitor students’ readiness for increasingly complex reading expectations.
Support for English learners will incorporate vocabulary development, oral language instruction and access to grade-level text with appropriate scaffolds. Students receiving Exceptional Student Services will receive aligned interventions, accommodations and progress monitoring through collaboration between classroom educators and ESS staff.
District leaders will monitor implementation through classroom learning walks, school data-review cycles, coaching, professional development, site visits and regular progress checks. School leaders will use the results to refine instruction and intervention groups throughout the year.
The district’s goal is to identify student needs sooner, measure progress more precisely and provide schools with meaningful support well before end-of-year state assessments.