The Department of Assessment and Intervention aims to provide a county-wide process that provides prevention, early intervention services and appropriate instructional programming to ensure academic progress and success for all students. The process will include continuous and varied assessments of student performance that will lead to data-based decision making and the use of multi-tiered, research-based intervention.
Department Goals:
- Build assessment literacy
- Make decisions based on the use of student data
- Support professional learning through resources and training
- Provide early interventions to struggling students
- Improve communication among stakeholders Pre-K to 12
- Reinforce the use of technology for assessment administration and data-collection
- Encourage feedback and goal-setting to increase student achievement
Assessment
Interventions
In addition to regular day-to-day teaching at each grade level, FCPS offers intervention programs for students who need help in specific academic areas. The goal of these programs is to provide short-term, intensive teaching to help students meet grade-level standards as quickly as possible. See the links to the left for more information.
Specialized Interventions
Ready to Read Act
In 2019, the Maryland General Assembly passed the Ready to Read Act. This bill requires reading screening to identify students at risk of reading difficulties in order to help prevent reading failure in schools throughout the State. All 24 school systems in Maryland are required to provide screening to Kindergarten students to determine if they are at risk for reading difficulties. If results indicate a student is at risk, supplemental reading instruction must be provided.
Frederick County uses the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) to screen students for reading difficulties. DIBELS is a set of procedures and measures for assessing the acquisition of literacy skills. They are designed to be short (one minute) fluency measures that can be used to regularly detect risk and monitor the development of early literacy and early reading skills. DIBELS is administered three times per year in order to measure student growth on these measures.
Checklist for Reading Difficulties and Dyslexia
Understanding the DIBELS Assessment
Understanding the DIBELS Assessment (Spanish)
Screening Results 2020-2021
Screening Results 2021-2022