Cadott School Board; Talks of next steps follow DPI report card success
Scott Mikesh, Legal and Policy Services Counsel at the Wisconsin Association of School Boards (WASB), gave Cadott School Board members a presentation and answered questions, during a Committee of the Whole meeting Nov. 29. Some of the topics covered in the presentation included open meeting laws, closed session, rules of order, public comment and social media guidelines. Photo by Julia Wolf
By Julia Wolf
After the Cadott School District and the three buildings in the district received a rating of “exceeded expectations” on the DPI report card, school board members heard how the scores are calculated, at a Committee of the Whole meeting Nov. 29.
“That’s something that we’ve been working at for quite a while,” said Jenny Starck, district administrator.
The 2021 report cards were released Nov. 16. The top portion of each report card contains district information with the percentage of students with disabilities, economic disadvantage and English learners.
Starck also explained that the priority areas (achievement, growth, target group outcomes and on-track to graduation) are weighted differently for different districts. She says the target group outcomes and ontrack to graduation, usually makes up about 50 percent of the weighting. The other two priority areas vary more.
“Our growth counts more than our achievement,” said Starck. “All of that is connected to how many students you have that are economically disadvantaged.”
Growth is measured on how much an individual student is expected to grow, as opposed to how much they actually do grow. Starck says the growth area gives a district credit for bumping a student up a level in the performance measure, even if the student is not proficient yet.
“Growth is for everybody,” said Starck. Melissa Lesik, director of special education, says they plan to show continued improvement by focusing on achievement and growth.
“Those things are going to move us forward more quickly,” said Lesik.
Board member Brad Sonnentag asked if there are plans for what they want to increase numbers to, since the five-year goal was to “exceed expectations,” and how they are going to get there.
Starck reminded board members they don’t have a goal related to the DPI report card in the annual goals, since the results come so late into the school year. The district’s annual plan uses FastBridge scores to monitor progress in achievement.
Starck agreed with Lesik’s earlier statement, that if the district continues to work on achievement and growth, they will see improvements.
“The strategies we use impact both,” said Starck. Board members agreed to discuss the possibility of a goal related to the DPI report card on the annual goals at the regular meeting in December.
Starck says it is nice for staff members to see reinforcement that they are going in the right direction and says there will be a small celebration for students in the coming months, as well.
The board also got a quick facility update on the request for proposals for a 25-year facilities plan. Starck says they got 11 proposals and is putting them into a spreadsheet for an upcoming meeting, with the hopes of voting on their chosen vendor by February.
