In 2023, Governor Newsom passed legislation requiring kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade students to be screened for reading difficulties, including dyslexia risk, using an approved list of screeners. School districts must adopt one of these screeners by June 30, 2025 (Ed Code Section 53008) for implementation in the 2025-26 school year.

At AUSD, we have been using Star CBM, a practical, valid, and reliable reading difficulties screener, for the past two years with high participation and effective use of the data to support students.

Last month, the state released the list of approved screeners, which includes: mCLASS Dibels, Amira, ROAR, & Multitudes. Unfortunately, Star CBM was not on the approved list. It is unclear why Star CBM was not approved, as it assesses the same skills, and in some cases more skills, than some of the approved screeners. (The state has not provided any insight into their selection rationale.) As such, we will need to transition to one of the approved screeners. 

ROAR and Multitudes have been deemed unsuitable for our context. This leaves us with two options: mCLASS Dibels and Amira.

A committee of AUSD administrators and teachers is working to learn about and recommend one of the screeners for our district, and we need your input! Here are some ways you can get involved:

• Check out the committee's work here (note: this is an ongoing deck that gets updated before and after every meeting).
• Provide input on the evaluation tool  we will use to determine which screener is a better fit for our context by May 12.
• Email Lindsey Jenkins-Stark to visit the district office and "play" in the screener's sandbox environments. A sandbox is a version of the software that you can test without real student data.
• Attend the presentation about this work at the Community Advisory Committee on April 22 from 6:30-8 pm at the  District Office.