5 school districts exceed state expectations

UPDATED: 11:30 a.m. Nov. 22

Schools in northeast Wisconsin received their annual report cards from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction on Nov. 16. For the most part, the results were encouraging in spite of the pandemic altering school schedules at random points in the 2020-21 school year.

Almost all school districts received a passing grade, with the majority of them falling into the “meets expectations” category. However, five area school districts had scores that fell into the “exceeds expectations” group, which requires a score of 70 out of 100. Bowler School District had the highest score among Shawano, Oconto and Menominee counties with a score of 76.9, followed by Wittenberg-Birnamwood School District with a score of 75.6 and Pulaski School District with a score of 75.1. Suring School District achieved a score of 71.9, while Bonduel School District scored 70.8.

Only one school district in the area did not meet expectations. Menominee Indian School District had a score of 49, and school districts needed to score at least 58 to meet expectations.

Individually, most area schools also had passing grades, but several schools scored in the highest category, which means they significantly exceed the state’s expectations. Oconto School District’s Bayshore Academy scored an 89.5, while Bonduel Elementary School scored 86.7, Birnamwood Elementary-Middle School scored 86.6, Hillcrest Elementary School in Pulaski scored 85.6 and Lena Elementary School scored 84.3.

Pulaski Community School District was the only area school to have all of its schools scoring in the exceeding or significantly exceeding categories. Hillcrest was the highest-scoring school in the district, while Sunnyside Elementary School was at the lower end with a respectable 72.1.

“Through hard work and dedication from both students and staff, PCSD is encouraged by their state report card scores across the district during a global pandemic,” said Allison Space, Pulaski superintendent, via press release. “We realize this is only one measure of student achievement that is collected statewide, and we will continue to work with students, families and staff to ensure that any unfinished learning during these times is regained.”

Bowler School District Superintendent Glenda Butterfield-Boldig was quick to point out she had nothing to do with her district’s outstanding work since she recently took the position, but she noted that student growth factored more in the high scores than the achievement scores.

“We’ve performed better than we have in years past,” Butterfield-Boldig said. “We’ve been working hard with UDL, which is Universal Design for Learning, a kind of proactive way that we think to teach and we can provide opportunities and access to students.”

Butterfield-Boldig pointed out that achievement is not where her district wants to be at, so that will be something the schools focus on this year to hopefully get even higher scores in the future. She noted the district is closing achievement gaps at higher than the state average, but there is still a long way to go.

“We’re about continuous improvement,” Butterfield-Boldig said. “We believe in continuous improvement, so the focus needs to be improving those achievement scores, particularly for our subgroups — students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged and American Indian. We still have some gaps we need to seriously address.”

The district has recently revamped its English curriculum for the younger grades, and it is working on adopting a new math curriculum for all grades, according to Butterfield-Boldig. She said it’s advantageous that her district is small, so it’s easier for staff to work with students one on one.

“Our students are growing at faster rates than other students in the state, and that means we are going to get there (closing the gaps) in the future,” she said. “We’re really looking at making sure we’re addressing the needs and meeting the needs of all of our demographics, not just the middle-of-the-road, average student.”

Suring School District Superintendent Kelly Casper said her district was “ecstatic and extremely excited” about the scores, especially considering the coronavirus pandemic disrupted learning institutions all over. School officials were able to look at the results prior to the information being released to the public, and Suring was eager to share its outstanding results with the public.

“We have room for growth, like everybody else, but we were very pleased,” Casper said. “We didn’t know, going into COVID, what it was going to look like.”

Michelle Pendl, Suring’s curriculum coordinator, said the district was trying to maintain as much of its programming as possible during the pandemic. There were cameras in all of the classrooms to accommodate students who were in virtual learning, she said, so those students were able to participate in classes the same as the students attending in person.

“We didn’t use much for alternative programming, like canned curriculum,” Pendl said. “We didn’t go that route and decided to stick with what we’ve been doing here.”

According to the DPI, the scores this year are calculated in four areas — achievement, growth, target group outcomes and on-track to graduation.

Shawano School District’s report card looks different compared to previous years, according to Kurt Krizan, the district’s director of personalized learning, due to a number of changes made to the report card, so it’s not possible to do a comparison with previous years to look at improvement.

“It’s always difficult to compare district to district with the large numbers of some districts with non-participation and opting out of the testing,” Krizan said.

Despite that and despite being in virtual learning for a chunk of the last school year due to the pandemic, the district is pleased that its schools are meeting expectations.

“Anytime you can meet the expectations that are set by the state, that’s where you want to start off,” Krizan said. “We definitely know we have some work to do and some areas that we can celebrate where we’ve been successful.”

Wittenberg-Birnamwood School District Superintendent Garrett Rogowski noted that his district is committed to improving target group outcomes, a great area of need in the high school’s case. 

"Essentially, target group scores relate to the lowest quartile of student achievement." Rogowski said. "Both PK-8 schools reflected strong performance of target groups, as well as exceeding in the area of closing significant achievement gaps." 

Rogowski noted that the report card results reflect one snapshot of time, and not a total school experience.

"As a district, we value and will continue to incorporate all measures of student performance, both academic and personal, into our collaborative response to student success," Rogowski said.

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com

BY THE NUMBERS

District report card results

Exceeds expectations: Bowler (76.9), Wittenberg-Birnamwood (75.6), Pulaski (75.1), Suring (71.9), Bonduel (70.8).

Meets expectations: Oconto (69.2), Lena (67.1), Oconto Falls (66.9), Shawano (66.6), Tigerton (64.6), Marion (63.7), Gresham (58.6), Gillett (58.4).

Meets few expectations: Menominee Indian (49).

School report card results

Significantly exceeds expectations: Bayshore Academy (89.5), Bonduel Elementary School (86.7), Birnamwood Elementary-Middle School (86.6), Hillcrest Elementary School-Pulaski (85.6), Lena Elementary School (84.3).

Exceeds expectations: Wittenberg Elementary-Middle School (80.5), Oconto Middle School (80.3), Oconto Elementary School (78.9), Suring High School (78.2), Lannoye Elementary School (78.2), Bowler High School (77.7), Gillett Middle School (76.7), Abrams Elementary School (75.1), Pulaski High School (74.1), Glenbrook Elementary School (73.6), Fairview Elementary School (73.2), Pulaski Community Middle School (72.8), Sunnyside Elementary School (72.1), Oconto Falls High School (70.2).

Meets expectations: Bowler Elementary School (69.9), Tigerton High School (69.5), Shawano Community Middle School (68.3), Gillett Elementary School (67.6), Suring Elementary School (67.6), Olga Brener Intermediate School (66.4), Washington Middle School (65.3), Shawano Community High School (64.6), Marion High School (64.2), Gresham High School (63.7), Lena Middle School (63.5), Marion Elementary School (62.9), Bonduel High School (61.8), Bonduel Middle School (59.9), Menominee Indian High School (59.8).

Meets few expectations: Wittenberg-Birnamwood High School (57.7), Lena High School (56.8), Tigerton Elementary School (51.8), Oconto High School (51.6), Gresham Elementary School (51.2), Menominee Indian Middle School (50.1), Keshena Primary School (49.7).

Fails to meet expectations: Gillett High School (39.4).