Fremont Public Schools

Brad Reyburn

Student Success Visionary

Brad Reyburn, Superintendent of Fremont Public Schools, leads a district whose test scores already rank among the best in its county. By turning the state’s school improvement platform into a working plan and aligning student support across every grade, his team identifies students who need help before they fall behind.

Where Plan Meets Practice

We always ask what story our data tells because we never settle. Our test scores are among the best in the county, and in some areas, we outperform the state average of 39 percent. Still, that was not enough for us. Our admin team examined the Michigan Integrated Continuous Improvement Process (MICIP), the state’s school improvement planning platform, and faced a choice: treat it as a box to check or make it our actual school improvement plan. We chose the latter.

That decision shaped everything that followed. Our multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) matches help to each student’s needs and serves as an umbrella for multiple areas of support. We aligned every MTSS process from kindergarten through 12th grade. Our elementary schools already had the core components, assessments to screen and diagnose students, interventions for identified needs and progress monitoring to determine whether the support worked. Because schedules and time constraints make intervention harder in secondary schools, we extended those structures into the upper grades and adjusted how students enter and exit support.

Supporting Every Student through Win Time

To learn from others, we visited a school in the Chippewa Hills School District and watched its What I Need (WIN) time in action. The school sets aside part of the day for extra support, and this year, we created our own version in our elementary schools. During that block, teachers, teaching assistants and other available staff lead small groups within each grade. Some students build missing skills, others work on grade-level content and those ready for more move ahead, so every student keeps learning.

Data guides each group placement. Screeners in math, English language arts and phonics identify possible gaps, while diagnostic tests show what each student needs. Students then receive targeted support for six weeks, with progress monitoring and follow-up assessments measuring results. When a gap closes, the student leaves and another takes the spot. If it remains, we adjust the approach. Elementary students take the Northwest Evaluation Association Measures of Academic Progress (NWEA MAP) test three times a year. STAR and Amira, an interactive AI reading assessment that pinpoints errors, provide additional data.

"We do not wait for a student to fail a test or two. We use data to step in early so every Fremont student keeps moving forward."

WIN time supports our elementary students, but the upper grades needed a different approach. The middle school added a math coach, additional screeners, diagnostic tests and interventions. At the high school, academic interventionists once stepped in only after students were failing classes. Now, we do not wait for a student to fail a test or two. We use data to act early and keep every Fremont student moving forward.

Trusting Teachers to Lead What Comes Next

Data can indicate that a student needs help, but cannot explain why a score dropped. A student may have been sick or had a hard night at home, and our teachers know that one assessment does not tell the full story. They know their students best, so we trust their judgment. Collaborative teacher teams also decide which students need interventions, bringing together educators who know them well. We are shifting from “me and my classroom” to “we and the us.”

Those same teams power our next step, the professional learning community process. Its first two questions ask what students need to know and how we will know they have learned it. The last two ask how we will support students who have not learned it and extend learning for those who have. That is where MTSS interventions and extensions begin. Michigan’s curriculum covers much ground with little depth, so our teams are mapping it, agreeing on essential standards for every student and building common formative and summative assessments. The goal is to provide help sooner and target the exact standard a student is struggling with.

We are also adding Satchel Pulse, a social, emotional and behavioral health screener, from kindergarten through 12th grade. Over time, it will help us see changes in a student’s well-being and respond earlier to social-emotional needs. Our positive behavior program is also moving to one shared acronym across all grades, while a new high school store lets students exchange earned cards for merchandise and drinks.