KRSD Curriculum Updates

January always seems to arrive at full speed. With winter activities underway, school assemblies on the calendar, snowy recesses in full swing, and midterm and final exams approaching, our elementary schools have just wrapped up the first trimester while secondary schools are quickly nearing the end of the semester. I hope everyone took the opportunity over the break to slow down and enjoy the season with family and friends.

Building on my last newsletter's focus on data, January’s Learning Lens highlights the growing momentum of MTSS across the district. Shoutout to Kaily Roukey for spearheading the committee work over the past three years! Teams are engaging in more intentional, focused conversations about student learning outcomes—using data not as an endpoint, but as a tool to guide instruction, intervention, and support. These conversations mark an important step in fostering a stronger, more consistent data culture district-wide, one that keeps student growth at the center of our work.

Below you'll find a refresher about MTSS below and a rundown of a really impressive Data Team Meeting I recently attended at KRES-Bradford.

(image above from BranchingMinds)

A Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) is a way schools organize instruction, assessment, and support to make sure every student gets what they need to be successful. It brings together information about academics, behavior and attendance, and social-emotional learning to create a fuller picture of how students are doing. Instead of looking at these areas in isolation, MTSS helps educators consider what’s happening for the whole child and why.

MTSS is built on strong core classroom instruction for all students, often called Tier 1. When students need additional help, schools can provide more targeted supports in small groups (Tier 2) or more intensive, individualized support (Tier 3). The goal isn’t to label students, but to match instruction and intervention to specific needs—while keeping the system manageable and responsive.

At the heart of MTSS is a problem-solving cycle driven by data. Educators work together to identify needs, analyze evidence, plan and implement supports, monitor progress, and adjust as needed. This structured process helps replace guesswork with thoughtful, coordinated action and keeps the focus on continuous improvement for students

I recently had the opportunity to attend KRES-Bradford’s winter benchmark data meeting for kindergarten and first grade. Thank you to Jen Bewersdorf, Jess Caswell, Andy Chouinard, Beth Fenton, Beth Hubbard, Kim Meyer, Sue Nadeau, Anna Phelan, Kathleen Stockman, and Shannon Tower for the collaborative, student-centered work and for sharing their process so openly.

A key strength of this year’s process has been the intentional decisions behind their MTSS. Winter benchmarking for K–1 and grades 2–5 was scheduled separately, and meetings were spread out rather than crammed into a single day. This thoughtful structure created space for deeper, more focused conversations and allowed the team the time needed to dig into data, ask questions, and problem-solve together.

Conversations centered on student growth, using the cohort assessment report generated through Branching Minds (see example below). Student Growth Percentile (SGP) helps us understand how much progress a student has made over time compared to peers who started at a similar academic level. Rather than focusing only on whether a student meets a benchmark, SGP highlights a student’s rate of growth on a scale from 1–99, where 50 represents typical growth. This means a student can be below benchmark but making strong progress, or at benchmark but growing more slowly—both of which provide important information. The team used data as a starting point for conversation while also acknowledging the whole child through classroom assessments and other measures.

sample cohort assessment report

Beyond standard benchmarking, a particularly strong example of school-wide problem-solving was Bradford’s focus on oral reading fluency (ORF) as a school goal this year, grounded in the word recognition strands of Scarborough’s Reading Rope. Teams reviewed ORF data through an MTSS lens, paying close attention not only to performance levels but also to students’ rate of improvement (ROI). This approach supported differentiated instruction and intervention based on student need and ensured supports were aligned to the specific skills students need to continue developing as readers.

(image above from Really Great Reading)

I’m looking forward to attending an upcoming Data Team meeting at KRHS and plan to visit MTSS meetings in each building over the coming months. These opportunities help strengthen consistency across our district-wide MTSS system and allow us to learn from one another as we continue to refine our practices in support of student growth. I also really appreciate the strengthened attention to student learning outcomes.

KRSD elementary schools wrapped up the first trimester in early December with the launch of a newly designed report card aligned to our local elementary competencies and learning targets. Thank you to Debbie Breault, our local PowerSchool guru, who works behind the scenes to support all of this work!

As with any significant change, there have been some growing pains, and I want to acknowledge the patience and flexibility of our elementary educators throughout this transition. Thank you for your thoughtful questions, problem-solving, and commitment to getting this right for students and families. I also want to recognize our secondary educators, whose earlier shift to competency-based reporting helped lay the groundwork for this next step at the elementary level. After many years of shared work, it’s exciting to see our local competencies now reflected consistently in reporting across K–12.

Below is a snapshot of "Betty B Test Student's" report card. Thank you to Jill Wilson for letting "Betty" be on her roster so I could use her as a demo student this fall!

Kearsarge Regional Preschool (KRPS) serves our youngest learners, 3- and 4-year-olds, in welcoming, developmentally appropriate classrooms located on the KRES Bradford and KRES New London campuses. The program nurtures early learning, social development, and curiosity through play-based, intentional instruction. KRPS is an inclusive program that serves both tuition-paying students and students with IEPs. For children eligible for special education services, access to preschool beginning at age three is required under IDEA, making KRPS a critical entry point for early support and intervention.

Prior to the winter break, I had the opportunity to work alongside our preschool staff to finalize developmentally appropriate competencies grounded in the New Hampshire Early Learning Standards and begin drafting a new preschool report card for implementation next year.

In our preschool classrooms, play-based learning is far from just “fun and games.” Research shows that when young children engage in meaningful play that is intentionally supported by adults, they build cognitive, social-emotional, and problem-solving skills more effectively than through seat-time or direct instruction alone, and they do so in ways that naturally nurture motivation and curiosity.

The goal of our reporting work is to ensure that this rich, play-supported learning connects to district competency-based education practices while thoughtfully scaffolding into our elementary reporting system. This collaboration supports a more coherent learning progression from preschool into the elementary grades while honoring how young children learn and grow.

This school year, our district began a comprehensive evaluation of our universal assessment tool. Following preliminary discussions last spring and new challenges with updated literacy norms over the summer, the District Leadership team decided to explore alternatives to aimswebPlus.

• Spring 2025: Preliminary discussions across grade levels and roles regarding aimswebPlus and how well it was meeting district needs

• Summer 2025: aimswebPlus released updated early literacy norms, which presented challenges for MTSS teams, state-required dyslexia screenings, and Title I rank ordering

• Early Fall: District Leadership team made the decision to explore alternative assessment platforms

• October: District-wide staff survey distributed through Curriculum and MTSS.

• November-early December: Administrative Steering Team (Andrea, Charles, Kaily, Lisa, and Tim) reviewed survey feedback and determined priorities based on the responses, researched platforms, contacted vendors, and planned next steps for broader committee involvement

We are excited to move into the next phase of this process. On Monday, January 26th, a representative committee of teachers and specialists will meet at the KPDC for vendor demonstrations from Acadience, i-Ready, and NWEA.

Participants will evaluate these platforms based on:

• Types of data collected and how data are displayed
• Ease of use and overall intuitiveness
• Parent report formats
• Student-facing features and usability

Hopefully you saw Barb Turner’s recent email about upcoming committee work around artificial intelligence. Our district is forming a new AI Committee to help guide how we thoughtfully and responsibly integrate AI into teaching and learning, and we’re seeking additional teachers to join. Committee members will help shape our AI vision and values, create policies and guardrails, address issues such as academic integrity, data privacy, and bias, and plan professional development for staff. If you’re interested in participating, please complete the form below by Friday, January 23rd and note the first two meetings: Monday, February 9, and Monday, February 16, from 3:15–4:15 p.m. in the KRMS Library.