Albion's three school principals delivered mid-year checkups on the district's 2023-2024 academic goals at the Feb. 5, 2024 Board of Education meeting, and the numbers told a mixed story: real gains in most classrooms, but signs in every building that progress made during the year does not always hold by its end. At the Elementary School, Angela Conway, Elementary School Principal, told the board that the school aims to raise K-5 reading proficiency 10 percentage points this year, as measured by the STAR assessment. Mid-year data showed growth since the fall, but Conway noted that for every two steps forward, the school tends to take one step back: the share of students reading at or above grade level, 57%, was the same at the mid-year point as it had been at the end of last school year, according to the minutes. The share of students needing urgent intervention did fall, from 21% at the start of the year to 13% at mid-year. By grade cohort, most groups moved up: kindergartners reading on grade level rose from 43% to 62%, first grade from 50% to 63%, second grade from 37% to 54%, and third grade from 49% to 62%, each also posting a sizable drop in students needing urgent intervention. Fourth grade broke that pattern -- the share reading on grade level fell from 56% to 53%, even as its urgent-intervention share also declined, from 23% to 16%. Fifth grade rose from 47% to 53%. On a separate fluency measure, DIBELS, the school reported that 99% of second graders, 95% of third and fourth graders, and 83% of fifth graders showed growth by mid-year, toward a goal that at least 75% of struggling readers make progress. At the Middle School, Brad Pritchard, Middle School Principal, reported that the school's own STAR reading goal -- a 5-percentage-point increase in students at grade level by June 30 -- is running well behind pace, with an overall 2% increase from fall to winter. The pattern varied by grade: sixth grade grew in the share of students at or above benchmark, seventh grade grew less but reduced its number needing urgent intervention, and eighth grade's share at or above benchmark actually fell, though its urgent-intervention numbers dropped too. Pritchard told the board that 194 middle schoolers are in good standing on the STAR assessment, 149 need intervention, 24 are serviced through Special Education Services, and 125 through Literacy and AIS services. At the High School, Jennifer Ashbery, High School Principal, reported on the goal of raising Regents passing rates 10 percentage points in Living Environment, Earth Science, English and Algebra by June, based on the January and June 2024 exams. With one round of exams given so far, results showed strong growth in most of those subjects, according to the minutes -- with one exception. Algebra, a graduation requirement given uniquely in the fall, reflects the district's largest group of struggling math students, and its results were on par with last January's, the minutes state. Each building also reported on non-academic SMART goals. Conway's staff have begun rolling out a "Habit of the Month" program, based on Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Happy Kids, now on Habit 4, Think Win-Win, for February. Pritchard's staff are about halfway through a staff training built around the "7 Habits of Highly Effective People," alongside a list of school events -- including an October assembly on kindness -- aimed at social-emotional goals. Ashbery's high school has added a 20-25 minute advisement period after each of the first two class blocks and is reviewing a training text on differentiated instruction for block scheduling, with staff having completed Habit 1, Be Proactive, of the "7 Habits" curriculum for teens. The board did not set a follow-up date for the next building-goals report, but each SMART goal presented carries its own end-of-year deadline: June 30, 2024, when the district will know whether the growth shown at mid-year held, reversed, or, as in the elementary case, evened back out to where it started.