Key Points
- Wilton’s test scores remain high, but achievement gaps between students with disabilities and those without have widened.
- The school board adopted 2027 targets for stronger student growth, higher proficiency rates and narrower gaps.
- Additional goals address students’ sense of belonging and connections with trusted adults at school.
Why It Matters: The goals establish benchmarks for whether Wilton schools can improve learning while addressing persistent disparities among students.
Members of the Wilton Board of Education set some new student growth targets for standardized tests for 2027 at their regular meeting Thursday, Oct. 8, while also setting a goal for narrowing the gap between students with disabilities and those without.
Standardized test results released earlier this school year show that Wilton students perform among the highest in the state, but the achievement gap in the district widened in English Language Arts (ELA), science and math.
School Superintendent Kevin Smith said district staff feel these goals are obtainable.
“The principals are pretty deeply engaged with the staff right now,” Smith said. “And so I feel confident that these are achievable,” he added, referring to the goals.
Among the goals adopted by the board: 80% of students will achieve their ELA growth targets and 85% will achieve their math growth targets on the 2027 Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA), which is one of the tools used by the state that evaluates students in grades 3-8 in ELA/Literacy and math.
In 2026, 65.5% of students achieved growth targets in ELA and 81.4% of students achieved their growth targets in math.
According to the State Department of Education (CSDE), the SBA Growth Model is distinct from achievement.
“Achievement indicates how well a student performs relative to grade-level expectations at a single point in time, while growth reflects the amount of progress made compared to similar peers,” the CSDE’s website states. “Understanding growth alongside achievement provides a fuller picture of student learning over time.”
Another goal set by the Wilton board: achieve a district average of 85% (meeting or exceeding standard) on 2027 standardized tests in ELA and math. In 2026, the district achieved 79.6% meeting or exceeding standard in ELA and 80.4% meeting or exceeding standard in math.
No one on the board had any questions on Thursday about the goals and priorities, but member Patrick Pearson had one statement.
“I like aggressive goals,” he said.
Chair Ruth DeLuca agreed.
“Just like we tell our kids, you meet the expectations set in front of you,” she said.
As far as the achievement gap, the board set a goal to narrow that gap between students receiving special education and students without disabilities by an average of three percentage points on 2027 standardized tests in ELA and mathematics.
The goal set for 2027 is 41.1 percentage points in ELA and 46.6 percentage points in math. The gap was an average of 44.1 percentage points in 2026 for ELA and 49.6 percentage points in math.
Smith said that district leaders are focusing on working to get students into services “ and just trying to knock down some barriers that we’ve erected around how we provide intervention to kids. I think that’s kind of one major piece, and then a redoubled effort around really looking more granularly at student data at the classroom level and…what it means in real time.”
The district also set another goal with regard to the student climate survey that would result in an 80% favorable response rate for two metrics: the relationship score — the percentage of students connected to at least one trusted adult; and the belonging score — the percentage of students who feel valued, respected, included and accepted as integral members of their school community.
Finally, the board also voted to establish various priorities.
For district operations in Teaching and Learning: priorities included continuing to use Building Thinking Classroom strategies, continuing to develop an integrated services model to help narrow the achievement gap and continued implementation of the English Learner program through 7th grade.
Other priorities included establishing a facilities subcommittee, crystalizing a 5-year facilities improvement plan and successfully negotiating labor contracts.
