I continue my slog through the Board of Education 01/27/2021 work session and have been able to watch the “Notice/Wonder” segment immediately following the presentation on where Appleton Area High Schoolers are academically.
This was not a traditional Question and Answer session, but rather an opportunity for the Board members to verbalize the things that stood out to them about the presentation and ask questions that could be answered at a later date. [To editorialize, since I’ve started watching these meetings, I’ve found the way they handle discussion after presentations odd. The normal way to run meetings is to give a presentation and then to open it up to questions at the end. The way AASD’s administration gives presentations to the Board comes across to me as if they are setting things up specifically to deflect hard questions from being asked and the expectation that answers be given. At any rate…]
Multiple Board members expressed satisfaction with the idea that this data would be tracked going forward and did hope that Steve Harrison would be able to pull some sort of historical data to compare these 2021 statistics too, but none of them seemed concerned that this information hasn’t been tracked up until now.
Kay Eggert was happy that they will be tracking data longitudinally. She noted that the on-track graduation rates for Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors seemed to be relatively constant, but she was concerned that essentially 25% of students in each of those years are not on track to graduate. She mentioned that AASD’s graduation rate is higher than 75% and she wondered how students that were behind made things up and were able to graduate. She also wanted to know if the number of Fs and incompletes was consistent or different between each of AASD’s high schools. If there was variation between the high schools could they learn anything from that?
Steve Harrison assured her that the data could be broken down by schools and demographic groups and that he would have Clara Kopplinger forward that information to the Board members.
Deb Truyman also liked that they are centralizing data collection to track progress going forward and thought that would help a lot. She wondered how much focus would be placed on promoting growth toward and attainment of year end goals. Will staff be figuring out what the foundations of the curriculum are and determining what needs to be taught by the end of the year? She also thought there had to be some kind of records from previous years that the current rate of Fs and incompletes could be compared to.
Steve said that he wanted to look further into that. He wants to make sure that the information the Board members receive is accurate. Going forward he can assure them that semester to semester and year to year comparisons are accurate because all the data will be coming from the one data source of Infinite Campus. But, to look back historically from this point, they would be comparing Infinite Campus data to data within eduCLIMBER. He wants to make sure that anything he shares with them is a truly apples to apples comparison. He said that he would do some more digging and make sure he could provide them with additional clarity regarding comparisons. [So, it sounded like he wasn’t promising that he would get some historical data but just that he would potentially provide them a better explanation as to why any historical data that exists either isn’t available or isn’t relevant to comparisons. And, again, it baffles me that whether they’re looking at Infinite Campus or at eduCLIMBER that the number of students with a specific letter grade during a historical time-frame would not be available.]
Deb also mentioned that she liked the high school Student Services Team “fishbowl” process that was covered prior to the presentation on student academic achievement. (Basically at the middle and high school level teachers and the Student Services Team meet as a group to discuss issues they may be seeing with students.)
Jim Bowman liked having the analysis broken out into three groups–kids with or without disabilities, English Learners and non English Learners, and those receiving free and reduced meals and those not.
Like Kay, he wanted to see the data broken out by high school site. A continuing concern of his is at what level do they solve problems? Do they stay at a very high level or do they go to a deeper level–to a school or even class level?
Barry O’Connor appreciated the effort that went into gathering this data and liked seeing the cross-district data. He wondered if they should have scheduled the work session after the incomplete deadline was over and they had full data to look at. He stated that they were looking at academic engagement but were not talking about science or social studies or engagement with other programs. He thought it would be good to know whether kids at the high school level are connecting to some area in the school that really interests them. He pictured it being a simple question: Do you have a favorite area or two? What are they? Do you have a favorite staff member or two? Who are they? Have you been able to make friends? He thought that was a pretty important aspect of engagement.
He also would like some kind of historical data to compare current data to. Currently 25% of 9th graders are failing at least one class–some of them multiple classes. How does that compare longitudinally? But also just in general? It struck him as a fairly high number compared to what he recalled and going back some years would give them a trendline. He also wanted to know if there were normed targets for growth. Is there a research based targeting system so that they know whether they are doing better than average both overall and within different demographic groups? Or do they just look at a number and see that it’s better or worse than the year before but there is no kind of norm to compare it to.
He wondered if the failure rates had changed as AASD’s grading policies changed. He noted that there were some changes in how AASD determined failure rates over the last 5 years. He thought that 25% of 9th graders already being behind track to graduate was a pretty substantial number. He thought the trends of which departments the failures are occuring in may be helpful.
He also wanted to make sure a genuine intervention strategy was created. Meeting on it is one thing, but do they have a real strategy to make someone responsible for engaging kids who are failing? Doing that at the 9th grade level in a systematic way could change the curve they were seeing. He also mentioned that they haven’t talked about graduation rates but that’s the ultimate data point at the end of everything.
Kris Sauter also appreciated all the effort that went into getting this data and liked the centralized data collection and progress reporting proposal. Since the period to change incompletes was still active she wondered if the final numbers would be different than what they were currently seeing. She also was interested in seeing some historical data although she understood that that data would not have been collected in the same way.
She wondered if, going forward there might be a plan to look at middle level data no only with individual schools but also across the district. She thought it would be helpful to look earlier than the high school level at interventions and areas that need additional input/work. Like Deb she liked the team approach at the middle and high school level to identifying students that need interventions and supports.
Gary Janhke reiterated that the ability to look at some trend data would be good–even if it was just 2018, 2019, 2020. He wanted to know if talented and gifted students were considered a service group.
Steve told him that they are.
Gary wanted to know if this process would help them confidently uncover the needs of those talented and gifted students? If the expectations of a student are just that they don’t want any Fs or incompletes how is that going to serve a student for whom getting an A is really easy? How can the district know if they are challenging those gifted students and helping them reach their full potential? How can we uncover that throughout this engagement process?
Steve stated that he appreciated the extensive feedback and that they would look into how they could put together different data sources from the past to provide the Board with as accurate a picture of where things were historically as possible. He reiterated that, at a minimum, moving forward they would be tracking data.
View the full 01/27/2021 Board of Education work session here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVxQr8s6J9g
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