Lehighton Area School District’s board of directors approved a $23,005 expenditure Monday for MAP Growth, an assessment system designed to track student progress and inform instruction.

The cost, district officials said, is being paid out of the 2024-25 curriculum budget.

The approved quote includes assessment for 1,250 students in grades 2 through 8 and virtual professional development for select administrators and teachers. The purchase includes several components: a $1,100 license for MAP Growth Foundations, $18,125 for MAP Growth K-12 assessments, and three virtual two-hour training sessions priced at $1,260 each for up to 30 participants per session.

During Monday’s meeting, administrators emphasized the significance of implementing a consistent and reliable norm-referenced assessment system across the district.

“MAP Growth is kind of the gold standard learning reference assessment system which allows schools to basically over time, longitudinally, collect data on where students are at academically,” Superintendent Jason Moser said. “Right now, one of my goals coming in was to make sure that there was a sound viable system of assessment that included not only criterion-referenced assessments, but also norm-referenced assessments. What we found very early on was that we don’t really have a systematic norm-referenced assessment for reading all the way through.”

Moser stated that the district currently uses a system called mClass for grades K through 3, but there is a drop-off in data collection after that point. The MAP Growth system, he said, will provide a consistent way to measure whether students are actually growing academically.

“Norm-referenced means the percentile rank results are compared against students of the same age who would receive the same amount of instruction,” he explained. “That is how you know whether or not students are truly growing.”

He pointed out that state benchmarks and standards can change, which may not accurately reflect whether students are closing achievement gaps. In contrast, MAP Growth provides teachers and administrators with consistent, objective data.

“What I like about MAP Growth is that it is in no way, shape or form tied to any curricular resource,” Moser said. “They’re not selling instructional material. They are saying, ‘We’ll tell you if the instructional materials you have, your curricular frameworks, scope and sequences, and your instruction are on point.’

“I refuse to believe that our teachers are not instructing to the best of their ability,” Moser added. “What I truly believe is we have not provided the best information for them to make instructional decisions. This system of assessment will do so.”

The system also provides data over multiple years, offering insight into a student’s long-term progress.

“Three years from now, you will be able to see a second grader’s results in second grade, and you will be able to see those three assessment points from second grade while they’re in fifth grade and every year and test in between,” Moser said.

The professional development component of the program will use a train-the-trainer model. Administrators and selected teachers will be trained first and then provide training on-site to other educators.

“We have specifically placed those assessment dates close to our professional development days,” Moser said. “Teachers actually will have scheduled time to sit down and look at the data and make some decisions around how they’re going to use it.”

Board members asked whether the program tracks student progress over time and if sample reports were available. Moser said he had already shown interested teachers what the reports look like during voluntary sessions and offered to present a demonstration to the board as well.

The system provides multiple report formats, including classroom profiles and individual student profiles.

“As a classroom teacher, it will form my small groups and instruction and tell me exactly what they need on the learning continuum,” Moser said. “That is less time that the teacher has to take to try to organize exactly where students fall.”