School Board Meeting Analysis

On June 23, 2014, I attended the regular monthly school board meeting for Black River Falls School District. There were a few items on the agenda, which point towards continuous improvement. First, Stephanie Brueggen put together a report analyzing the State Testing Assessment. This is the data as achieved based on our WKCE assessments given last fall. She recognized that our achievement is not currently at an acceptable level. She also outlined that at the same time, we are making strides in the right direction and although we hope to be moving by leaps and bounds. She discussed that this is the last year that we will have this data for comparison, next year the Smarter Balanced Assessment kicks in and we will have all new baseline data. We will still be able to compare ourselves to our neighbors and the state, but we will not be able to measure growth from this school year to the next.

As evidence that our district does exhibit traits of continuous improvement, Ms. Brueggen explained that annually, we report out on our WKCE Scores. She explained that historically, it has been hard to draw concrete conclusions from this data or take a lot of stock in it because of when it was administered. We know from many internal assessments that our district annually suffers a great amount of summer loss. It is hard to put a lot of stock in an assessment given just 6 weeks after school has started, as we are still measuring much of that loss instead of student achievement made possible by our system.

She also explained that beginning last year, with the 2012-13 school year, Wisconsin established performance standards (cut scores) comparable to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) cut scores for the WKCE reading and mathematics content areas.These WKCE performance levels were revised to more closely align with national and international expectations of what is required to be college and career ready. This change did not happen for Language Arts, Science and Social Studies. Unfortunately, this paints our performance in Reading and Math in a less desirable light.

Stephanie then explained then showed charts and further explained the results, which were, unfortunately, somewhat disappointing. She went on to discuss the continue steps we are taking as a district and individual schools to address the achievement issues. 

She explained that for Reading and Math the Smarter Balanced Assessment will be replacing this assessment. We are pleased that this assessment is being given in the spring of next school year, as we hope it will be more indicative of our educational system’s impact on student achievement. She talked about how we have been working hard to increase student achievement in Reading and Language Arts through our work with the Literacy Collaborative Model. We know that we have not yet reached our goal in terms of student achievement and will continue to work with teachers on fidelity of implementation as they now have more training under their belt at the elementary level. Middle School will be beginning down this path of training next school year as well. In Math, we know that we have slightly higher data, but still continue to strive toward higher student achievement. At the secondary level, we adopted new math materials 2 years ago to provide more rigorous learning. Additionally, at the High School level, teachers in the areas of Reading and Language Arts and all areas have and will be engaging in professional development in effective strategies in Reading and Math. 

Finally, she referred back to our mission statement saying, "As a district committed to “Inspiring Excellence”, we continue to set goals around student achievement and regularly monitor our progress towards these goals. This year, individual teachers monitored their data across the system more than we have in the past because of educator effectiveness. As you have heard/will hear in the update on the strategic plan, we continue to make gains in the area of Student Growth and are beginning to close our gap toward desired student achievement. We still have more work to do, but we have a lot of great things in place that with time, will help us have a true and positive impact on student achievement." This is just one example of how our district is making the continuous improvement cycle "a habit of the mind" as described in "The Key Work of School Boards".

Another item on the agenda was a report from our community facilities task force. This is a group of mostly community members across a broad spectrum who were assembled earlier this year to look at our current facilities and address any needs that they found. The group has been working with the administration, a construction management team and a team of school architects. They progressed through a series of tours, meetings and discussions about needs, costs, options and a community survey in order to put together a proposal that was presented at this board meeting.

As the book states, "continuous improvement thrives on good information." This process was filled with good information from the tax impact of a potential referendum to the first-hand information that group got from touring and meeting at a different district site for each of their meetings. Using that information allowed for an efficient and effective timeline to move this along. The recommendation that was presented to the board calls for the demolition of a very old and outdated elementary building, the building of a new building and some other upgrades across the district. It does not address all the needs identified, because they surveys showed that the community is not ready to take on that much tax burden and the committee really wanted to let the data lead them. 

These two examples show that our district is in that mind-set of always looking for ways to better serve our children by constantly improving the educational experience that they are receiving. It's all about "Inspiring Excellences!"

The three steps that I would take as a superintendent to improve the board focus on continuous improvement would be the following:

1. Hold an annual board retreat each summer to review data and set priorities for the coming year
2. Adopt a board document management system that would allow for efficient and secure sharing of documents and communication between the board and me, the superintendent.
3. Seek out targeted professional development for the board president and me to solidify our working relationship and best serve the full board and the district.