One of our primary goals in our district is to provide high quality instruction that ensures academic growth for every student. We are implementing the first phase of a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS). One component of MTSS is to have an assessment system that gives teachers timely feedback in order for them to be better able to differentiate instruction in the classroom and provide targeted instruction for struggling students as well as for  students at standard and above.

The Bainbridge Island School District is implementing a new district-wide assessment this year that will replace the Measurement of Student Progress (MAP). The decision to replace MAP with a new assessment was decided by both the Instructional Support Services and the response to intervention (RTI) committees last spring. Each committee had representation from every school.  The new assessment is called FastBridge and is similar to MAP in several ways, but also has valuable tools available that MAP did not. Additionally, the amount of time required to test students will be significantly reduced compared with MAP. All students in grades 1-8 will take a Fastbridge computer adaptive reading (aReading) test three times a year. Students in grades 1-6 will take the adaptive math (aMath) test three times a year.  Like MAP, these tests are taken on the computer and are adaptive. That means that the difficulty of the questions change based on how students answer test questions. Like MAP, the questions are aligned to Common Core State Standards and are nationally normed. The score reports will be  available immediately for teachers.

All students in grades 1 and 2 will also be given an individually administered curriculum based measure (CBM) in Fastbridge to assess reading fluency. A trained teacher or specialist will administer this assessment which consists of a student reading a short, one minute, passage at her/his grade level. Because we are using a team approach, we estimate that an entire class can be given this individual assessment in about 25 minutes.

The CBM, aReading, and aMath tests will be given in September, December-January, and May-June.

Like all assessments, these measures are just one tool that teachers use to screen students, monitor progress, and measure growth over time. Results from aReading and aMath will supplement the day-to-day assessments teachers use in the classroom, providing teachers with additional information to help all students grow academically.

Please visit FastBridge Learning at www.fastbridge.org and click on the Assessments tab to learn more.