I wouldn't worry too much about the fall scores being a couple points lower than last spring. If his winter scores also come back lower I'd talk to the teacher about making a plan for him to reach his growth goal by spring.
I haven't heard of a 230 cap and it seems like that would defeat the purpose of high performing students taking the test if it's capped like that. Maybe she meant the school just caps the maximum growth goal for a 3rd grader at 230?
It also seems odd that she's saying you can't compare scores between 2nd and 3rd grade since that's the whole point of the RIT scale. Bottom line, I'm skeptical about her information.
