The Appleton Area School District’s Board of Education met 09/30/2021 and reviewed the scorecard for the 2021-22 school year. The score card is essentially the district’s list of goals for the school year. It’s divided into 4 sections based on the 4 pillars or areas of focus the district has.
Pillar 1 is titled “Inclusive & Engaging Culture To Support Teaching and Learning” the aim of which is to “ensure a safe, healthy and welcoming school environment for ALL.” The goals on this portion of the scorecard are all centered around that.
Assistant Superintendent of Student Services Polly Vanden Boogard gave the presentation to the Board. She started out by saying that now that they had the information from the 2020-21 school year, they could work on targeting some of the gaps revealed in that so that they could see overall growth occur in the district.
Key Measure/Target 1: Increase the Staff Engagement Survey mean score: 3.71 (2021) to 3.86 (2022).
That targeted goal was based on Studer recommendations for expected growth. [Studer is the consulting company the district does some of its surveys through.]
Key Measure/Target 2: Increase the overall response rates across sites participating sites within the Panorama Staff and Student Surveys by 20% (60% 2021 to 80% 2022)
During the 2020-21 school year, they deployed the Panorama survey to all staff and students. This year, they wanted to increase the overall response rate. Last year they got about a 60% response rate and they want to get it up to 80%. “We really want that 80% threshold to be sure we are having the majority of our students and staff as we think about action steps and how do we continue to support the district.”
Key Measure/Target 3: Increase the number of students who score favorably (3, 4, 5) in the area of Sense of Belonging within the Panorama Student Survey
○ Elementary 64% to 67%
○ Secondary 40%-44%
Panorama considers “favorably” to be a rating of either 3, 4, or 5. [I’m curious if that is made clear to survey takers. Typically, I would consider 3 on a 5-point scale to be a neutral score of neither favorable or unfavorable.]
Based on the responses to the panorama survey given in 2020-21, they decided to separate that question out for focus. They want to increase the students’ sense of belonging.
Polly stated, “So, you can see quite a difference with how our students are feeling from the elementary level to the secondary level, and so that is an area that we need to dig into. It is concerning, and we are working with our student services teams to do that.”
Key Measure/Target 4: Reduce the gap in attendance rate between Black and White students by 1%.
This was the area where they saw one of the greatest differences, so they chose to focus on that specific category.
Key Measure/Target 5: Maintain the overall district out of school suspension (OSS) rate of 3.4% (19-20) during the 21-22 school year.
They did not seem to be aiming for a reduction, but they did want to maintain their current out of school suspension rate of 3.4%. She said they felt maintaining the 3.4% OSS rate was a lofty goal but one they wanted to shoot for.
Key Measure/Target 6: Reduce the district out of school suspensions (OSS) for Black/African American students from 21% (19-20) to 18% (21-22) of the total number of incidents.
That had been the same goal they had had for last year’s scorecard. [Technically, they met that goal last year. Black/African American students accounted for only 13.4% of out of school suspensions in 2020-21; however, that could very well have been fluke given the fact that school was virtual for much of the year.]
Polly stated, “Knowing that last year’s data, last year’s information, was a little bit different given that…we were more virtual than in person, we need to work really hard to reengage students, to reconnect students, to understand what they have just been through and continue to go through, and really shift our thinking to say ‘how do we support the needs of our learners?’ when we’re seeing challenging moments come up or we’re seeing…students that are struggling to reengage given what they have just been through.” It was important to figure out how to reengage students and figure out why students are responding the way they’re responding, given what they have been through.
They planned to monitor their progress on those 5 key measures/targets through the following means:
- Fall and Spring Panorama results
- Fall Staff Engagement Survey results
- Quarterly attendance reports / fidelity checks
- Quarterly OSS reports
She pointed out “fidelity checks” and explained that that was a new progress measure. “We want to make sure we are using our attendance teams correctly and accurately across the district and so we are going to be checking the fidelity of how our sites are using their attendance teams to assure that consistency.”
She then reviewed the various action steps that they planned to take to accomplish the key measures/targets they had set.
Action Step 1: Focus Panorama roll out at the high school level by building understanding and the “why” behind the tool.
She said they noticed that the response rate looked different at the high school level than at other levels “and so we are going to specifically make sure that they have the understanding and the why behind the tool so that that will increase the engagement and participation rate.”
Action Step 2: Train and coach administrators and deans in Restorative Practices as an alternative to Out of School Suspensions (OSS)
[This had been an action step for the 2020-21 school year that they did not accomplish.] They were going to make the commitment this year to train their administrators and deans in restorative practices. She said it tied nicely into a mental health grant they received.
Action Step 3: Trauma Informed Strategies for staff working with students with emotional behavioral disabilities or receiving services through this program.
She said this action step was newer. [Indeed, I do not see it on the 202-21 scorecard.] They want to look at “what are our students going through. What have they been through? But we want to make sure we are providing more trauma informed strategies for staff working with students…with emotional behavioral disability or receiving services through that program. When we think of Out of School Suspension, when we think of discipline, is how do we make sure we have really strong practices of trauma informed care, specifically in those programs? We want them schoolwide, and we have them school wide, but we also have to recognize that some students come with more, maybe traumatic, or what we call ACEs, into the school building and so how do we gear up and give those staff members some more specific tools to address some of those more challenging needs that our students are experiencing?” [ACEs stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences.]
Action Step 4: Data extract for Charter Sites and Dual enrollment for Primary vs. Secondary – consistency on how the data is reported (Panorama)
They said they needed clean up how their data is reported with Panorama. To that end, they will make sure that when students respond they can only give the school they are primarily enrolled in. Last year, on the other hand, if they attended Appleton Technical Academy, for example, they had the option to list either ATECH as their school or West as their school. That skewed the data and caused it to not be useful at times. So, going forward, students will only be able to list their primary school.
Action Step 5: Implement quarterly fidelity checks around the attendance process and procedures.
She already touched on this, but she expanded on her earlier statement. “We know getting our kids connected is important but we also know that as a school and as a district we need to make sure we are following that process and procedure set forth for our sites. It’s important, it’s researched, it’s from the Attendance Works. And so, we know if we do that, we should see positive outcomes. But we also know we need to have that consistency in how we are using our attendance team, so we’re gonna implement some fidelity checks across the district.”
Action Step 6: Implementation of having community partners (i.e. TRAC) as part of site attendance teams.
They want to to make sure they have community partners as part of their attendance teams, specifically the TRAC program, to help the district solve and work through these challenging moments.
Action Step 7: Implement an attendance symposium – Rebound and Re-engage
She said they implemented the attendance symposium Rebound and Re-engage and were “trying to reconnect and re-excite school teams to welcome their students back in, but then also continue to welcome their students back in. Again, it’s taking some students a little bit longer to get back in that routine of school and feeling safe into that routine of school, and so just, again, giving tools to our administrators, to our attendance teams, to our teachers, to be able to meet students where they’re at but then continue to bring them along through that journey and that process.”
Action Step 8: Implementation of Culturally & Linguistically Responsive (CLR) strategies and practices within all AASD classrooms / buildings
[As you may recall, the administrative team provided an entire presentation on CLR during the 09/27/2021 Board of Education meeting.]
The district plans to implement CLR in all its classrooms and buildings. Per Polly, “Again, when we think of how we handle discipline, how we welcome students into a school building and to a classroom, we wanna make sure we are being culturally and linguistically responsive to that and so making sure not only is it at the classroom level but it’s at the building level as well so that we can make sure students are feeling safe, welcomed into the school environment.”
That was the end of her presentation and she opened things up for questions.
Board member Jim Bowman said he continued to be interested in the implementation of CLR. Generally, what he had heard about it was high level discussion, but, while that was valuable, he was interested in more specifics. “If at some point if we can get more into what a teacher does specifically or might do to carry out CLR, I’m interested.” [I too would really like a more detailed explanation and some examples of how it works in practice.]
Board member Kris Sauter asked Polly to tell them a little more about Rebound and Reengage and whether that was something that occurs at all schools or at certain levels.
Polly answered that they did one in August. All sites were encouraged to bring their attendance teams and she estimated 99% were able to do so. The symposium was a way to reground the attendance teams, administrators, and staff around the attendance process and the important of having students attend school.
She said they had their community partners and the county there also. They focused on how to continue making sure students were getting to school and being supported. The symposium was a way for them to reset given that last year had been virtual for much of the year with some in-person and hybrid.
They wanted to make sure all the teams were following the same process/procedure. They also focused on reengaging students. “Throughout the year now we’re seeing certain gaps in students. How are we working together to reengage those kids, and what can we do to provide, as a district, sites with the needed supports to be able to do that? Which is why we’re bringing along some of our community partners into that conversation.”
Board member Deb Truyman said it sounded like the district and staff were doing a lot of reengage the students. She wondered if there was a point at which the students would just have to realize that they have a part in that as well.
Polly said she was spot on. “Our staff are working really, really hard to engage students. We continue to do more home visits than we ever have before. We continue to make those phone calls, reach out, but I think that’s part of the process of attendance is: how do we make sure students see the value in coming to school and engaging in understanding and learning? And so, yes, the student has that buy-in, but I would say we as adults want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to continue to get them there even though some days, as you guys know, it’s—it feels like, you know, I don’t know any other way to get this student to school. I’ve been to the house, I’ve engaged, and we’re still challenged.” She thought students did need to take some of that ownership, but the school district still should never give up on the students and trying to engage them.
Deb brought up the Panorama survey results and the difference in the sense of belonging between elementary level students and secondary level students. Given that Panorama doesn’t allow for student comments, she wondered how they would know what needed to be worked on.
Polly said they work with their guidance curriculum to see where that sense of belonging fits. They also look at their Social and Emotion Learning lessons to figure out where they need to enhance to curriculum with themes involving a sense of belonging. At the individual school level, if staff sees concerns about how their students are responding, then can work with their students through small groups with their school counselor or with their classroom teacher, but ultimately it comes back to the curriculum that addresses those themes and the district makes sure (1) they’re delivering that curriculum to fidelity and (2) that the results are changing the Panorama score. She noted that this was the first time they have that score, so she’ll be curious to see where it goes as they continue down the road because that gap between the levels was alarming. [Honestly, I found that answer pretty inadequate. It seems like a basic thing necessary in order to correct the problem would be to find out why students at the secondary level don’t feel like they belong. There are multiple reasons why a teenager in school might not feel like they belong, and simply using a curriculum to tell them that they do belong isn’t going to be effective if the underlying reasons for them feeling like they don’t belong are never addressed.]
Board member James Bacon hoped that those Panorama scores would result in conversations with kids at the school level to get their feedback. He felt that seeking out their feedback would make the survey more meaningful to them rather than just having them fill it out and then they never no what happens with it.
He was also glad to see the trauma informed strategies and restorative practices being rolled out because when he looked at the measures for Out of School Suspensions “I just continue to look at the fact that our African American students are being suspended at almost 7 times the rate of their peers, and all the research from my understanding is that that is [a] very detrimental and rarely positive intervention that actually impacts them moving forward. And maybe 3% decrease is ambitious enough; I’m a believer in the combination of ambitious and feasible goals, but to me that still seems like an alarming number even if we were able to achieve the 18% compared to the district average, so I just wanted to highlight that.”
Polly said they already have trauma informed practices in the district. “I think what we continue to realize is we have to continue to address it to beef up those strategies, because kids are coming in with more and it looks different in our classrooms than it did even 5 years ago, and so how do we keep that at the forefront—not just say it was something we did and then we don’t have to bring those tools back out—and not that our staff are doing it—they’re very aware of what their students are bringing to the classroom, but they’re experiencing our students—experiences our students are going through that I had never lived as an adult and we need to be aware of those and equip our staff with tools to address things that we as adults have never nor will never go through in our lives.”
James Bacon had one final question which he said she didn’t have to answer just then but he wanted her to think about. “In addition to thinking about how we support our staff as individuals, what are the structures and systems we’re putting in place to try to help account for that at the system level, so that we can support and catch some of that and ask the right questions before it just becomes a statistic towards this goal?” [Frankly, the more I look at that question the less it makes any sense to me.]
Polly thought that was a great point.
The board had no further questions regarding the Pillar 1 goals and action plan for the 2021-22 school year.
View full meeting details here: http://go.boarddocs.com/wi/aasd/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=C6WNT461183D
View meeting video here: https://youtu.be/XW1wjFFAVSw
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