MADISON — The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction released its district report cards Nov. 12 for the 2018-19 school year, and all area districts are among the 96% of the state’s 421 districts that meet or exceed expectations.
Both Monroe School District and Monticello School District dropped from ratings of “Exceeds Expectations” to “Meets Expectations,” while other area districts remained within several points of their 2017-18 scores and stayed in the same categories.
Districts received scores ranging from 0 to 100, rated as follows: 83 to 100 points (Significantly Exceeds Expectations), 73 to 82.9 (Exceeds Expectations), 63 to 72.9 (Meets Expectations), 53 to 62.9 (Meets Few Expectations) and 0 to 52.9 (Fails to Meet Expectations). Each rating also corresponded to a number of stars, with five for significantly exceeding expectations and one less for each tier below.
Scores were calculated based on four categories: student achievement, school growth, closing gaps between student groups and students being “on-track for postsecondary readiness.”
Albany — 72.2, Meets Expectations
Argyle — 72.9, Meets Expectations
Black Hawk — 68.2, Meets Expectations
Brodhead — 74.6, Exceeds Expectations
Darlington Community — 78.1, Exceeds Expectations
Juda— 79, Exceeds Expectations
Monroe — 69.1, Meets Expectations
Monticello — 71.1, Meets Expectations
New Glarus — 73.5, Exceeds Expectations
Pecatonica Area — 77.8, Exceeds Expectations
The latter measures things like attendance and graduation rates, as well as eighth-grade math achievement and third-grade language arts achievement.
In this year’s report card, Monticello School District dropped from 74.3 to 71.1 and Monroe School District dropped from 75.8 to 69.1.
The same rating system is applied to individual schools throughout the state, and Monroe Middle School and all three MSD elementary schools were rated “Exceeds Expectations.” Monroe High School, however, dropped from “Meets Expectations” at 68.3 to “Meets Few Expectations” at 60.8.
According to District Administrator Rick Waski, the drop was due to the growth index score at the high school that was in place for the first year, measuring the growth between when freshmen and sophomores take the ASPIRE test and when juniors take the ACT. Previously, the report card was based on the other three areas only.
“We know we have good staff and students at the high school,” said Waski, but that “the growth on those tests in recent years … is not where we would like it to be and we’re taking measures to address that.”
“We’re going to be using the flex time in a more targeted manner,” he said, referring to the built-in study time in the schedule, as well as working more test preparation into classes.
The school districts of Brodhead, Juda, New Glarus, Darlington Community and Pecatonica Area each retained their rating of “Exceeds Expectations,” with fluctuations of less than five points in either direction.
Albany School District, Argyle School District and Black Hawk School District remained at “Meets Expectations,” but all improved their scores within that category.
At 72.2, up from 65.1, Albany showed the biggest improvement among local districts. Just two report cards ago, in the 2016-17 ratings, Albany had been designated “Meets Few Expectations.”