Friday, January 17, 2025
SPRINGTOWN — Assistant Superintendent Tiffany Cano updated the Springtown ISD board about the newly implemented internalization process showing positive results in improving student performance across the district.
At the Dec. 16 school board meeting, Cano explained that the internalization process focuses on faculty working with professional learning communities (PLC) with high-quality instruction materials and instructional leadership development.
“Things have shifted in the world of education, especially in Texas,” Cano said. “Going from lesson planning to lesson internalization has become such a theme this year. Even the T-test domain rubric, they have created an alternate rubric this year for internalization because usually it addresses lesson planning.”
Cano showed that last year’s STAAR test results for fifth-grade math showed students underperforming with only 59% of students achieving “approaches grade level,” 33% achieving “meets grade level” and 13% achieving “masters grade level,” which was the lowest it has been in a long time.
To combat this issue, the district implemented STEMscopes, which is quality instructional material provided to faculty along with the internalization process. According to Cano, this change made a huge difference.
“On our last CBA (curriculum-based assessments), 92% of students reached ‘approaches grade level,’ 53% reached ‘meets grade level’ and 17% reached ‘masters,’” Cano said.
Fifth grade reading and language arts are also showing signs of improvement.
“At the beginning of the year, teachers were hesitant to embrace the changes, but they are now seeing the benefits,” Cano said.
Board trustee Cody Bryant spoke during Cano’s presentation and said he has even seen improvement in his own child who attends Goshen Elementary.
“It might just be pure luck, but both in math and reading, his growth percentile shows he’s in the 99 percentile. Call me lucky, but it's working,” Bryant said.
While the results on fifth grade reading improvements are still to be determined, early results are showing positive numbers with special education students.
While most elementary schools have embraced the internalization process, upper grade level schools have had some reservations. Some of the middle schools have had scheduling conflicts regarding the PLC meetings, but administrators are currently working on future collaborations.
“What I see is we’re going to see much more success there with our kids moving up,” Cano said.
Springtown ISD is optimistic about the long-term impact of internalization. The district plans to provide additional updates in the spring, including survey results and more analysis on student performance.
