The board had an important meeting Wednesday, although the meeting went past eleven we heard detailed reviews of the district's RtI (Response to Intervention) program, our disproportionally data, and a review of our standardized test results (A district "report card" if you will). The data was put together and presented by John Faust, Ed O'Connor, Bill Breisch and Charlie Ellis. These gentlemen did an excellent job putting together thorough and clear presentations for the board.
RTI is a system to service students with special needs, it relies on assessment of the effectiveness (the response) to enhanced instruction provided (the intervention) to these students. The emphasis is on results, not identification. RTI is a response to the problem that student achievement tends to stagnate once students are identified as having special needs in traditional special ed systems. Our district is still in the process of implementing this system, but we do have a leadership role in Wisconsin. Some of our data already shows apparent success of this approach in MG schools at the elementary level.
“Disproportionally” refers is the difference in achievement between our minority and white students, it is manifest in academic achievement data as well is the ratio of students identified with special needs or challenges, these ratios are often 3 times greater for minority students. This is a significant problem state wide, and our district is no different.
Overall our district's academic data is not as encouraging. While both growth and achievement are well above average, results are stagnant and not improving as much as I would like to see. It’s the reason the board needs to focus on achievement and not the issues of buildings, buses and fields that have been such a distraction over these last several years.
On the subject of the budget, a succession of little things over the summer has added up to increase our projected budget deficit for the current year. From an estimated $250,000 it is up to about $600,000- but we won't know precisely until the 3rd Friday count is in next week. This will take our fund balance down to the minimum acceptable or below. Bad news, and unfortunately the state budget means that next year will be significantly worse - we will probably be needing to find $1M in the next budget.
One more thing: This year we moved the annual meeting a few weeks earlier to make it easier to meet the state deadlines at the end of October. We didn't know at the time that the date we picked, Monday October 5th, was going to conflict with the Packers vs. Vikings game. Sorry 'bout that!
.jpg)
