West Baton Rouge Parish School System (WBR) stands out among Louisiana’s Districts on the Rise in reading for building a tightly integrated system of curriculum, data, and accountability that reaches every school and every student. In fall 2023, the district conducted a comprehensive needs assessment with an external partner, using ESSER funds to inform the adoption of new high-quality instructional materials—selecting Wit & Wisdom for ELA and adding Wilson Fundations for K–3 phonics and phonemic awareness, creating a complete literacy framework.
Implementation was supported through instructional coaches and weekly PLCs where teachers align curriculum and assessments, while school leaders participate in parallel PLCs to reinforce expectations. The district built a system of district common assessments (DCAs) validated against prior state LEAP results and tracked in real time alongside LEAP scores, enabling teachers and leaders to project whether students are on track to meet growth targets and identify struggling grade levels before results are locked in.
That data infrastructure is organized around an “ABC” School-Wide Plan framework—Attendance, Behavior, and Core Instruction—with each school tracking a consistent set of monthly indicators against its own prior-year baseline rather than against other schools. District leaders conduct quarterly reviews of every school, translating findings into required action steps for the following quarter. On attendance, the district uses a multi-touch family engagement strategy combining daily texts for absent students, research-based messages through Everyday Labs that leverage social norms, and escalating outreach at 3, 5, and 11 consecutive absences—framing every conversation as a learning discussion rather than a compliance measure. For the full case study, click here.
“Our success in West Baton Rouge is rooted in our focus on improving and measuring the ‘ABCs’—Attendance, Behavior, and Core Instruction,” said Dr. Chandler Smith, Superintendent of West Baton Rouge Parish School System. “By tracking these indicators in real-time, we have moved beyond just looking at numbers to performing deep, student-level diagnostics that allow us to pinpoint exactly where challenges lie and fix them before they become permanent gaps.”