September 17, 2014 at 4:52 p.m.
School district receives mixed evaluation as annual report cards are released
School district receives mixed evaluation as annual report cards are released
Pelican Elementary School has climbed a level and now, according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, it is exceeding expectations.
After two years in the "meets expectations" category, the school raised its rating to 76.1 - up over five points from its 2012-'13 rating of 70.7 - and became the first Rhinelander public school to enter the "exceeds expectations" category.
"It's fabulous. It's very exciting. It was hard not to say anything because all of this data has been embargoed so we had to get special permission for (principal Martha Knudtson) to be able to share it with her staff at the beginning of the school year because that's a big one. You want to be able to share it with your staff and have that celebration," Superintendent Kelli Jacobi said. "It was fabulous news. We're very excited to see (Pelican is) exceeding expectations."
The excitement of the Pelican announcement was tempered a bit, however, by the announcement that the Northwoods Community Secondary School (NCSS) dropped a level and now "meets few expectations."
That is the same category the school found itself in when the 2011-'12 report cards were released, however the school rose to the "meets expectations" category in 2012-'13, coming in with a rating of 63.1. That rating dropped to 56.1 according to the 2013-'14 report cards.
A high absenteeism rate - 15.2 percent - hurt the school. Any absenteeism rate over 13 percent garners a 5-point deduction.
"NCSS did go down and we're working on a plan for improvement. A big part of that was their attendance and truancy issues," Jacobi said.
"We put a plan in place at the end of last year when that problem was identified."
Even with those five points, however, NCSS still would be in the "meets few expectations" category.
"We are working to correct several issues at that school," Jacobi said.
"The teachers and administrator are part of the planning process to get that turned around."
The other five schools in the district meet expectations, according to the state.
Four of the five schools increased their rating from the 2012-'13 report cards. (The previous year's scores are in parentheses).
Other than Pelican, Northwoods Community Elementary School was the highest rated school in the district with a score of 72.1 (71). Next comes Rhinelander High School at 71.4 (69.7), Central Intermediate School at 68.2 (67) and James Williams Middle School at 68 (67.7).
Schools need a score of 73 to enter the "exceeds expectations" category. Jacobi said after seeing this year's results, the goal is to have more schools join Pelican in next year's report.
"We've got a couple schools that are very close to making that move," she said.
"NCES is 0.9 (points) away from making that move and the high school is only 1.6 (points) from making that move. That's very exciting, too."
"All of the work that we - and I mean that collectively, all of our teachers, all of our support staff, all of our administrators - have been working on for several years now seems to be making a difference," she added.
"We see it in different ways in the buildings every day, but to see it come out in this once-a-year snapshot is fabulous ... and I'll be sending out a note to all staff to show my appreciation and to congratulate them. Their hard work is paying off."
Now is not the time to let off the gas pedal, however, Jacobi said, she wants to see these upward trends continue.
"We're not letting up. It's not like we're saying Pelican (scored) 76, that means we can sit back and relax now," she said. "We're going to continue all of the initiatives that we've implemented and we're even increasing those because we're going more with mathematics in our Response-to-Intervention framework. We hope we will see some changes in numbers for mathematics in all of our buildings."
Crescent Elementary also saw its score decrease. After being the highest rated district school last year at 71.6, Crescent came in at 68.2 according to the 2013-'14 report cards.
Jacobi said the administration would be working closely with the school to make sure it's getting the support it needs to reverse the downward trend.
"Last year and this year, we have a lot of brand new teachers, so we are increasing our professional development activities for the new teachers working on our core instruction and making sure all of the students in the regular classrooms are getting good, solid instruction," she said.
"Last year at Crescent, we had a lot of brand new staff, mostly brand new teachers, and we had a brand new principal, so I don't see this as the school is sliding into a problem area, they just need some additional support to get moving back in the other direction. We have plans in place to provide that additional support."
As for the district as a whole, the School District of Rhinelander received a score of 68.4, up from its 2012-'13 rating of 67.
Director of Instruction Teri Maney said the report cards are only one set of data the district keeps its eye on. Many tools are used to make sure the district is working at maximum capacity, she said, adding that, administrators will not rest until all schools are rated in the "exceeds expectations" category.
"This is one set of data. There is much, much more to what we do in the routine daily practice that is not reported out that is probably more valuable than this data," she said.
"In speaking with the principals, no one will be happy until all of our schools are exceeding expectations because that's what we believe the school district to be."
Other districts in the area
Compared to other districts in the area, Rhinelander is somewhere in the middle of the pack.
Area schools that received the "exceeds expectations" rating include Northland Pines High School and Middle School, Tomahawk High School and Merrill High School.
Area schools that received a rating of "meets expectations" include North Lakeland Elementary School, Tomahawk Middle School and Elementary School; Antigo High School, Arbor Vitae-Woodruff School, MHLT Elementary School, Three Lakes High School, Crandon High School, Lakeland Union High School and Lac du Flambeau Elementary School.
Antigo Middle School fell to "meets few expectations" this year, after receiving the "meets expectations" rating last year.
Marcus Nesemann may be reached at [email protected].
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