I have been trying to get a handle on what the Appleton Area School District has been doing in response to the academic struggles of their high school students.
Those struggles were apparent as early as when the first quarter grades were released. For example, AASD has confirmed to me that 821 students at Appleton North High School received at least one D or one F on their first quarter grades. Out of 1,700 students enrolled at North, 48% were either outright failing or just barely passing.
When I asked Superintendent Judy Baseman what the district did in response to those poor first quarter grades, she pointed to the rollout of the Virtual Plus program. She stated very plainly, “As soon as our teachers, counselors, and administrators saw the difficulty that certain students were having with engaging in the Fully Virtual model last fall, we began providing Fully Virtual Plus targeted interventions and support.”
However, when I asked how many students received services through that program between the end of the first quarter and the end of the second semester, I was given figures by Assistant Superintendent Steve Harrison that were so vague as to be completely worthless. I was also told by him that, “Since students receiving Tier 3 services could be personally identified by the fact that a small number of students are specifically targeted for support, this information is protected as to not publicly identify students within these targeted groups.”
It now appears that the reason Steve Harrison gave for why those numbers were not being released to the public was not accurate. Rather, the real reason AASD has not released data regarding the number of students who received Virtual Plus services is because that information does not exist.
Both Greg Hartjes, the district’s Chief Financial Officer, and Dave Pynenberg, the Principal of North High School, confirmed for me that these records do not exist. Per an email from Greg Hartjes, “Other than the number of students who received at least one D or F, there does not appear to be any records responsive to your request, but as the principals are incredibly busy I have not had a chance to confirm this. From what I understand, the challenge is that individual teachers oversaw the Virtual Plus support services, so they brought students in on an ‘as needed’ basis. Which students were brought in for support, and when, was not recorded by the principal or school in any way. So, it is not that you are being denied access, but rather that the record does not exist.”
Essentially, although Superintendent Baseman touted the Virtual Plus services as a worthy example of how the district responded to the academic struggles of the high school students, there exist no formal records of which students were served, how many were served, how often they were provided services, or what services they received. It is therefore impossible to judge the effectiveness, quality, or value of the Virtual Plus services. There is no way to determine if those services actually targeted the students who needed it. There is no way to determine if the students who did receive services actually benefited from them.
The most one can determine is that even if a full 20% of high schoolers received Virtual Plus service (which was the maximum percentage Steve Harrison allowed might have been served), that was less than half of the nearly 50% of students (if North’s number are at all reflective of the other two high schools) who would have benefited from additional support.
In order to provide proper oversight, there needs to be data, but the Virtual Plus services were provided in such a way that no data exists.
Also of note is the fact that I am similarly being given the runaround regarding the number of high schoolers currently receiving Graduation Coach and Credit Recovery Teacher services.
During the 04/12/2021 Board of Education meeting Assistant Superintendent (High School Level) Ben Vogel gave fairly precise figures for the number of Graduation Coaches (40-45) and the number of Credit Recovery Teachers (20-25) currently working with students, but when he gave figures for the number of students being served he gave an estimate based on the assumption that all of those coaches and teachers were currently meeting with 5 students each, an assumption that seemed unlikely to be accurate given the fact that the program has just started.
I emailed him and asked, “What is the exact number of students who are utilizing the graduation coaches program and the exact number of students utilizing the credit recovery teacher program as of 04/19/2021? It seems like those would be good numbers to have so that the district and the public can see how the program grows over time.”
He responded, “Thanks for your email. At this time, I do not have any further information to share with you beyond what I shared with the AASD board members last Monday. However, please know that we do plan to update the board as we move forward with our graduation coach and credit recovery teacher positions. This will include information about progress made by students who have been assigned a graduation coach or credit recovery teacher. I would be happy to share this information with you once we have had a chance to share it with the board. Again, thanks for reaching out.”
Note that not only did he have no numbers but, going forward, he spoke only of providing information “about progress made by students” but not anything about giving actual, basic, solid figures regarding how many students are actually receiving or will receive these services. If the way the Virtual Plus services were handled is any indication, there’s a distinct possibility that AASD is not and has no intention of tracking the number of students receiving Graduation Coach and Credit Recovery Teacher services.
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