Superintendent Baseman Clarifies AASD Use Of Probable Cases In Burden And Trajectory Calculations; Refuses To Comment On Plans For Fall Semester

I have been trying to get to the bottom of why School Superintendent Baseman told a parent back in November that the Appleton Area School District would only be using confirmed cases to calculate burden and trajectory numbers but is now including probable cases when calculating Appleton’s burden and trajectory.

In November of 2020, Superintendent Baseman was asked in an email by a parent “Appleton is about to change how they report numbers: https://www.facebook.com/appletoncityhall/photos/a.698447646887843/3529393163793263 So they will be including possible cases as actual cases. What data will you be using for your return to school matrix? Are you still using 200 cases per 100,000 people?”

In response to that, she stated, “We will only be using confirmed cases for our burden and trajectory criteria.  The CDC continues to use 200 cases per 100,000 people, so we will as well.  However, this is only one of the data points that will be used in our decision making.”

She has now told me, “I should have clarified that I was referring to the data we calculate internally, such as the Tri-County burden, Student positive cases, and Staff positive cases. We only use confirmed cases for calculating this data.  In addition, we also use the trajectory of data in our matrix, which is not affected by the use of probable cases.”

Additionally, I have been told by AASD Chief Financial Officer Greg Hartjes “Back in November, when we were told that the City had started to use probable cases along with confirmed cases in their burden calculation, we considered calculating our own number for the City burden.  However, we were concerned that people would see a different City burden on our website than they would see on the City’s website, and would accuse us of manipulating the data.  So, we stayed consistent with our practice of using the City number as it was provided to us by Curt [sic] Eggebrecht.”

I also tried to clarify why exactly the older students are not returning to five-day-a-week in-person instruction. Although I don’t think the answer I received adequately addressed that, Superintendent Baseman did say a couple things that I thought were interesting.

(1) “Our district has committed to maintaining a fully virtual option for this school year for any family that wants/needs it. Currently, that includes 20-25% of our students in grades 7 – 12. However, this is not a feasible model beyond this school year with our current staffing capacity.”

(2) “We have strived to remain consistent with our SAFE School Reentry Guiding Principles established in July as we have made decisions surrounding student learning throughout the 20-21 school year. Those guiding principles remain:

Safety: For students, staff, and our community
Accessibility:  To high quality instruction
Flexibility:  To respond to changing conditions
Equity:  To meet the needs of all students”

Those statements raised a couple obvious questions which I proceeded to ask Superintendent Baseman.

(1) In light of the fact that maintaining a fully virtual option is not a feasible model beyond this school year at current staffing levels, does that mean that Superintendent Baseman will be pushing to remove the virtual option next year? Or will she be pushing to increase staffing so that AASD can continue offering a virtual option?

(2) One of the guiding principles that AASD has striven to remain consistent with during the last year is “Equity:  To meet the needs of all students”. How does 27% of high schoolers failing at least one class fit in with the guiding principle of meeting the needs of all students?

Three full days have passed since I asked those two questions, and the superintendent has not responded.

It is a little concerning that we are only five months away from the start of the 2021-22 school year but the superintendent of the district is not yet able to say whether she will be pushing to end the fully virtual option or hire more educators in order to maintain a fully virtual option. Obviously, this is important to parents and students who, after a year of upheaval, deserve to at least have some idea of what the upcoming school year will look like so they can plan accordingly and make alternative educational arrangements if necessary. For example, the private school voucher enrollment period ends April 15 (https://dpi.wi.gov/parental-education-options/choice-programs/student-applications), and the public school open enrollment period ends April 30 (https://dpi.wi.gov/open-enrollment). Additionally, whether parents or not, taxpayers have an obvious interest in knowing if the local school district wants to markedly add to its staff.

You can read the full text of Superintendent Baseman’s email to me below.

I took a look back in my sent email and in the email you are referring to from November 24, I should have provided better clarification in the answer below.

Question:

I also see that Appleton is about to change how they report numbers: https://www.facebook.com/appletoncityhall/photos/a.698447646887843/3529393163793263

So they will be including possible cases as actual cases. What data will you be using for your return to school matrix? Are you still using 200 cases per 100,000 people? This is going to be even more difficult to achieve if the count now includes probably cases. 

Answer:

We will only be using confirmed cases for our burden and trajectory criteria.  The CDC continues to use 200 cases per 100,000 people, so we will as well.  However, this is only one of the data points that will be used in our decision making.  

In the answer above, I should have clarified that I was referring to the data we calculate internally, such as the Tri-County burden, Student positive cases, and Staff positive cases. We only use confirmed cases for calculating this data.  In addition, we also use the trajectory of data in our matrix, which is not affected by the use of probable cases. 

As seen in our weekly Learning Model Re-Evaluation Matrices our data collection has not changed. While it is true that the City uses probable cases, confirmed case data is used internally by our team whenever possible:

*COVID-19 Tracker data
*Tri-County data
*In our updated Learning Model Re-Evaluation Matrix (read about the updates here). Starting February 10 we added two new indicators, the total number of new positive cases for students and staff in the previous week and the weekly total number of new quarantines.

Please see below regarding your question related to our 7 – 12^th grade students returning to a four day in-person schedule while remaining fully virtual on Wednesdays rather than a five day in-person schedule:

We have strived to remain consistent with our SAFE School Reentry Guiding Principles established in July as we have made decisions surrounding student learning throughout the 20-21 school year. Those guiding principles remain:

1. Safety: For students, staff, and our community
2. Accessibility:  To high quality instruction
3. Flexibility:  To respond to changing conditions
4. Equity:  To meet the needs of all students

We have remained flexible in our approach, offering options for students and families, and have shifted between learning models when it was safe to do so. The hybrid learning model at the middle and high school has been embraced by our staff and has allowed us to deliver high quality instruction while at the same time providing flexibility and safety for our students since January 19th. Within the current hybrid learning model, teachers offer synchronous instruction to students at home and online. This will continue when we return to in-person instruction four days a week on April 5th.

Our district has committed to maintaining a fully virtual option for this school year for any family that wants/needs it. Currently, that includes 20-25% of our students in grades 7 – 12. However, this is not a feasible model beyond this school year with our current staffing capacity. 

This option was an emergency action due to the pandemic and an effort to serve all of our students and families. The workload this entails for our 7-12 grade staff is immense but is not sustainable. A fully virtual day each week is essential to ensure that our staff are able to provide our fully virtual 7-12 students and our in-person 7-12 students with the resources, targeted instruction, and individualized support they need.   

Thank you.

Judy”