MONROE - Student growth in the Monroe school district last year fell short of the goals outlined in the District Improvement Plan, but administrators point to recently implemented "instructional priorities," new programs and other changes as a path toward improving the numbers.
"While the data isn't exactly what we had hoped it would be, it is what it is, and we have some things in place that we're going to continue to work and grow as a district," said District Administrator Cory Hirsbrunner.
District Improvement Plan
The District Improvement Plan laid out three goals for the district to work toward over the last few years.
The first benchmark required student growth in grades two through eight to meet or exceed the national 90th percentile on reading and math MAP assessments. This means that to meet this goal, students had to improve as well as or better than 90 percent of students taking the test nationally.
Data reported at the Oct. 27 school board meeting showed varied results across the grade levels and years, with some grades consistently in the 80th percentile and higher in growth in math, but others dipping below the 60th. In reading, the data show larger variation between years. In each subject, some grade levels get close to or exceed the 90th percentile goal, but not across the board.
"When we set that 90th national percentile, that we knew was a pretty lofty goal," Hirsbrunner said. "We knew that given our baseline data that hitting that 90th percentile mark was going to be difficult, but we wanted to leave it at that anyway."
The second goal required a 10 percent increase in the students meeting benchmark scores in each of the four academic areas on the Educational Planning & Assessment System (EPAS) in grades eight through 11 over a four-year span. Only grade 10 English reached that goal, with a 12 percent rise from 2010 to 2013.
Several other grades in particular academic areas rose by 7 percent or more, while others dropped.
The third goal required the District Growth from Entry Metric (GEM) score to increase from "failing" to "average" by spring 2014. A GEM score is derived from ACT and EXPLORE scores.
GEM scores rose above failing - to "weak" - for the Monroe Class of 2014, but fell again to failing for the Class of 2015.
With so few benchmarks met, Hirsbrunner said the district will be looking at creating new goals. She noted changes in assessments, since the district is adopting STAR assessment and Smarter Balanced Assessment, which aligns to the Common Core standards, according to its website. Students are also required to take the ACT starting this year.
"What we had for goals in our District Improvement Plan are going to have to be changed," Hirsbrunner said. "But it's going to take some time, it's going take some work with the board, with the administrative team, to find out what we want that to be based on some new information we're getting from the state and what's required for testing."
Reading and writing workshops at the district's elementary schools this year and next will also help raise reading scores, said Director of Curriculum and Instruction Terri Montgomery.
She said the increased "instructional minutes" in core areas that resulted from a schedule change at the middle school should help, too.
The district will be working on the updated District Improvement Plan this year, according to Montgomery.
Data Report
Administrators also reported on other student data, looking at test results, college readiness and what graduates do after high school.
Students who are deemed ready for college-level coursework by their performance on the ACT increased by 4.8 percent from 82.4 percent in 2012-13 to 87.2 percent in 2013-14. Those numbers may change in coming years, with the ACT no longer opt-in.
An average of 74 percent of Monroe High School graduates enroll in higher education - four-year or two-year institutions - at some point during the first two years after graduation. But 2009 was the peak at 79 percent; student enrollment has declined steadily since then, reaching 67 percent in 2012, mostly due to a drop in students enrolling in four-year institutions.
School board member Michael Boehme asked Hirsbrunner if the district's goal is to increase the number of students moving on to higher education.
"I believe that our goal is to make sure we provide students with a skill-set that's going to help them with whatever they plan to do when they leave us and in the years to follow that," Hirsbrunner said. "If college isn't for them, college is not for them, and I would hate to push someone in that direction if that's not what they feel it is that they need. But I think that we have to make sure that we - if they do choose to do that - that we've done the very best job we can do while they're with us."
Board member Bob Erb expressed concern for students leaving high school without any kind of plan for the future.
"To me, there's a chunk here that is walking out of here without a plan, and without a plan, they are kind of headed for a cycle of poverty, and that does concern me because that's just not a plan in this day and age," he said.
Instructional Priorities
Starting in the fall of this year, administrators have emphasized four instructional priorities - or "Fab Four" - for teachers to work on.
The Fab Four include engaging students in learning, communicating with students, using questioning and discussion techniques and using assessment in instruction. Each priority includes more specific examples of what it entails; engaging students in learning, for example, calls for teachers to use more class time for students' active participation than for the teacher's talking.
"We feel like this gives our teachers some level of focus, so we don't take a shotgun approach and ask them to do a hundred different things, and instead say here's four things that we want to focus on," said Joe Monroe, director of pupil services. "We believe if we do these things well, it's going to lead to better outcomes for our kids."
Along with the Fab Four, administrators set a goal to observe each teacher at least once per month and provide immediate feedback based on what they saw. Teachers are not told when an administrator is going to drop in on them for a "quick visit."
Monroe said they expected to see teachers exhibiting the strategies outlined in the instructional priorities about 60 percent of the time in the first month of visits, which was in September. Instead, they were "pleasantly surprised" to see it was closer to 80 or 90 percent of the time, he said.
"I think that's a testament to the quality and dedication of our teachers, and I think it also says a lot about our building principals ... and the support and the conversations that we're having," Monroe said. "I think that's probably the most important byproduct is we're having more conversations about what goes into quality teaching than we've ever had."
Sara Latimer, principal at Abraham Lincoln Accelerated Learning Center, said the quick visits goal raised the level of professionalism by holding administrators to standards as well as teachers.
"I think that teachers are seeing that we're working hard and that we're really engaged in what they're doing in the classroom and becoming more knowledgeable about what they're doing in the classroom, and I think that's an incredible advantage in our relationship in being able to talk about instruction," she said.
Monroe noted that improvements don't happen overnight.
"We're learning as we go as well," he said. "But I do feel good about the instructional priorities that we've identified and I think it's going to lead to good results."
"While the data isn't exactly what we had hoped it would be, it is what it is, and we have some things in place that we're going to continue to work and grow as a district," said District Administrator Cory Hirsbrunner.
District Improvement Plan
The District Improvement Plan laid out three goals for the district to work toward over the last few years.
The first benchmark required student growth in grades two through eight to meet or exceed the national 90th percentile on reading and math MAP assessments. This means that to meet this goal, students had to improve as well as or better than 90 percent of students taking the test nationally.
Data reported at the Oct. 27 school board meeting showed varied results across the grade levels and years, with some grades consistently in the 80th percentile and higher in growth in math, but others dipping below the 60th. In reading, the data show larger variation between years. In each subject, some grade levels get close to or exceed the 90th percentile goal, but not across the board.
"When we set that 90th national percentile, that we knew was a pretty lofty goal," Hirsbrunner said. "We knew that given our baseline data that hitting that 90th percentile mark was going to be difficult, but we wanted to leave it at that anyway."
The second goal required a 10 percent increase in the students meeting benchmark scores in each of the four academic areas on the Educational Planning & Assessment System (EPAS) in grades eight through 11 over a four-year span. Only grade 10 English reached that goal, with a 12 percent rise from 2010 to 2013.
Several other grades in particular academic areas rose by 7 percent or more, while others dropped.
The third goal required the District Growth from Entry Metric (GEM) score to increase from "failing" to "average" by spring 2014. A GEM score is derived from ACT and EXPLORE scores.
GEM scores rose above failing - to "weak" - for the Monroe Class of 2014, but fell again to failing for the Class of 2015.
With so few benchmarks met, Hirsbrunner said the district will be looking at creating new goals. She noted changes in assessments, since the district is adopting STAR assessment and Smarter Balanced Assessment, which aligns to the Common Core standards, according to its website. Students are also required to take the ACT starting this year.
"What we had for goals in our District Improvement Plan are going to have to be changed," Hirsbrunner said. "But it's going to take some time, it's going take some work with the board, with the administrative team, to find out what we want that to be based on some new information we're getting from the state and what's required for testing."
Reading and writing workshops at the district's elementary schools this year and next will also help raise reading scores, said Director of Curriculum and Instruction Terri Montgomery.
She said the increased "instructional minutes" in core areas that resulted from a schedule change at the middle school should help, too.
The district will be working on the updated District Improvement Plan this year, according to Montgomery.
Data Report
Administrators also reported on other student data, looking at test results, college readiness and what graduates do after high school.
Students who are deemed ready for college-level coursework by their performance on the ACT increased by 4.8 percent from 82.4 percent in 2012-13 to 87.2 percent in 2013-14. Those numbers may change in coming years, with the ACT no longer opt-in.
An average of 74 percent of Monroe High School graduates enroll in higher education - four-year or two-year institutions - at some point during the first two years after graduation. But 2009 was the peak at 79 percent; student enrollment has declined steadily since then, reaching 67 percent in 2012, mostly due to a drop in students enrolling in four-year institutions.
School board member Michael Boehme asked Hirsbrunner if the district's goal is to increase the number of students moving on to higher education.
"I believe that our goal is to make sure we provide students with a skill-set that's going to help them with whatever they plan to do when they leave us and in the years to follow that," Hirsbrunner said. "If college isn't for them, college is not for them, and I would hate to push someone in that direction if that's not what they feel it is that they need. But I think that we have to make sure that we - if they do choose to do that - that we've done the very best job we can do while they're with us."
Board member Bob Erb expressed concern for students leaving high school without any kind of plan for the future.
"To me, there's a chunk here that is walking out of here without a plan, and without a plan, they are kind of headed for a cycle of poverty, and that does concern me because that's just not a plan in this day and age," he said.
Instructional Priorities
Starting in the fall of this year, administrators have emphasized four instructional priorities - or "Fab Four" - for teachers to work on.
The Fab Four include engaging students in learning, communicating with students, using questioning and discussion techniques and using assessment in instruction. Each priority includes more specific examples of what it entails; engaging students in learning, for example, calls for teachers to use more class time for students' active participation than for the teacher's talking.
"We feel like this gives our teachers some level of focus, so we don't take a shotgun approach and ask them to do a hundred different things, and instead say here's four things that we want to focus on," said Joe Monroe, director of pupil services. "We believe if we do these things well, it's going to lead to better outcomes for our kids."
Along with the Fab Four, administrators set a goal to observe each teacher at least once per month and provide immediate feedback based on what they saw. Teachers are not told when an administrator is going to drop in on them for a "quick visit."
Monroe said they expected to see teachers exhibiting the strategies outlined in the instructional priorities about 60 percent of the time in the first month of visits, which was in September. Instead, they were "pleasantly surprised" to see it was closer to 80 or 90 percent of the time, he said.
"I think that's a testament to the quality and dedication of our teachers, and I think it also says a lot about our building principals ... and the support and the conversations that we're having," Monroe said. "I think that's probably the most important byproduct is we're having more conversations about what goes into quality teaching than we've ever had."
Sara Latimer, principal at Abraham Lincoln Accelerated Learning Center, said the quick visits goal raised the level of professionalism by holding administrators to standards as well as teachers.
"I think that teachers are seeing that we're working hard and that we're really engaged in what they're doing in the classroom and becoming more knowledgeable about what they're doing in the classroom, and I think that's an incredible advantage in our relationship in being able to talk about instruction," she said.
Monroe noted that improvements don't happen overnight.
"We're learning as we go as well," he said. "But I do feel good about the instructional priorities that we've identified and I think it's going to lead to good results."