DPI Report Card: Boyceville schools “meet expectations”
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BOYCEVILLE — The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has released their state report cards on every school district in the state for 2021-22 and all Boyceville schools “meet expectations”.
That’s what DeeAnn Thompson, Tiffany Creek Elementary principal, reported to the Boyceville Board of Education during its regular monthly meeting held Wednesday, December 14 in the high school/middle school IMC.
Thompson began by telling members that the annual report card “is not a one-year score, its not a one-year calculation.” She noted that almost all of the scores that appear on this year’s report card are at least three if not five years of scores combined to get the final score for each category.
The DPI’s ratings for school districts are based on standardized testing, but the testing requirements were waived in the 2019-2020 school year because schools were closed statewide in March of 2020 in response to the pandemic.
According to Thompson, there are four priority areas – achievement, growth, target group and on-track to graduation – which can look somewhat different depending upon which entity one is looking at – elementary, middle school or high school.
Boyceville has an enrollment of 716 where 11.7 percent of the students are open enrolled, 15.4 percent have been identified with disabilities and 37.2 percent are classified as economically disadvantaged.
Thompson noted that the percentage of economically disadvantaged students is significantly lower than in previous years. She said that part of the reason for this is that district’s statewide offered free lunches for all students during COVID so families did not have to fill out the free and reduced lunch form that is used to track economically disadvantaged students. Thompson said the higher a district’s economically disadvantage population, the more weight is given to growth versus achievement. Currently, all three of Boyceville’s school are weighted more on achievement than would normally be the case.
As a district, Boyceville received a score of 65.7 out of 100 points which was a slight increase of .4 from the 2020-21 academic year. In that range, the Boyceville school district “meets expectations”.
Most district’s throughout the state fall within that 60 to 70 points range, according to Thompson.
She said the district realized an increase in achievement scores by Hispanic students in math and English Language Arts (ELA) last year but that the district’s growth score is in the bottom ten percent of districts statewide.
At Tiffany Creek Elementary, which has 403 students where 12.9 percent having disabilities, 37.5 percent economically disadvantaged and 11.9 percent opened enrolled, this year’s score was a 66.4 out of 100 points which “meets expectations”. That rating, however, represented a decline of 9.2 points from the previous year’s score of 75.6.
Thompson noted that TCE students identified as economically disadvantaged dropped from 46.5 percent in 2020-21 to 37.5 percent this year which placed more weight on achievement than in previous years.
TCE saw a drop in all four of the priority areas with growth and target group seeing the largest dip by 15.2 and 16.8, respectively.
The middle school actually had a significant increase in its overall score from a year ago when it received a 60.2. In 2021-22, the middle school earned a 67.8 out of 100 points which still rated it as “meets expectations”.
Scores for student achievement, growth and target group all showed positive increases in the middle school which has 113 students, 9.7 percent of which are open enrolled, 33.6 percent were considered economically disadvantage and 14.6 percent were identified with disabilities.
The middle school achievement score of 65.2 points was the same or higher than nearly 70 percent of its peer school in the state.
The high school also showed an overall increase in score, going from 58.2 to 61.1 out of 100 points which, again, “meets expectations”.
Of the 200 students in the high school, 21 percent had disabilities, 38.5 percent were economically disadvantaged and 12.5 percent were open enrolled.
The high school achieved gains in all four priority areas. While math growth in the high school went up significantly it still remains an area of concern according to Thompson.
The 2021-22 DPI state report card for Boyceville and all districts in the state are available online at: https://apps2.dpi.wi.gov/reportcards/home
During administrative reports, athletics director Brian Roemhild gave a recap of the fall sports season and an early snap shot of the winter sports teams.
In his monthly report, high school/middle school principal, Patrick Gretzlock, informed members of some new academic programming for the 2023-2024 school year. Discussions and evaluations of the school’s course offers has lead to the consideration of allowing eighth grade students to enroll in high school level Algebra, implementing a personal finance course as a required credit to better prepare students for the financial challenges that confront all adults and implementing “revamped and modernized” Work Study and Youth Apprenticeship programs.
In other business, the school board approved the hiring of Rachael Simmerman as the new high school/middle school administrative assistant effective July 1, 2023. Simmerman will fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Viv Hanestad at the end of the current school year.
The hire of Adam Bauer as a part-time mechanic and full-time bus driver was also approved by the board as was the resignation of Brandi Dinsmore as a bus driver.
The board also gave its approval to hire CESA 10 to provide the district with a facilities study.
Under the recommendation of Superintendent Nick Kaiser, members unanimously passed a resolution that would allow the district to apply for an early start exemption for next year so the school year could conclude on or before May 31. The DPI still has to approve the exemption.
Before going into executive session, the board officially accepted a $250 donation from the Northwest Rod and Gun Club to be used for the middle school/high school archery program and an $1,884 donation from a DonorsChoose funding source, which is coordinated through 3M, for an “AC Electronics and Dual Enrollment” project requested by teacher Frank Fetzer.
