Week 13: Updates on LEARNS

Happy Friday!

Thank you for another week of teaching and learning! Our performance targets are continuing with the same trends as last week for attendance and behavior. Our academic reports’ hard data should be updated in December and January. That is the data that is gathered from across all students at all grade levels. Not all of the data is in yet but early indicators show that we are seeing growth coming from Tier 2 intervention data.

This Wrap-up is intended to update you all on the LEARNS workgroups’ progress for Early Learning, Career Readiness, and Accountability and Assessment, along with some of the information being shared with our Education Committees in the legislature.

LEARNS Taking Shape

During the summer when LEARNS was being challenged in court, the state department could take no steps in creating the rules to operate from, which put schools behind and delayed our actions at the local level. The uncertainty and disjointedness we feel here are the same for everyone in the state as information begins to trickle down.

I attended a conference this week where Ross White, Director of Career and Technical Education, spoke about the progress of the Career Readiness workgroups. He said that there would be a lot of information coming out in December and also shared an Analysis of Arkansas’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) Programs report being used by the legislature and all of the workgroups for the development of the three major topics for Career Readiness in LEARNS: Career Diploma Pathway, Community Service diploma requirement, Workforce Reporting, Course credit replacement (CTE and Core course).

He made the point that we, the schools, are the starting point for economic development in our local communities and the state. It is the goal of LEARNS that all students have a clearly defined pathway to a career that is productive and lucrative. The data in the report detail the pathways that exist now, how clearly defined they are, and whether they are meeting job placement demands or not.

Legislative committees and LEARNS workgroups have also been provided with a similar report on Early Learning in the state. In this report, longitudinal tracking clearly indicates that students with early learning opportunities were more successful in school. The primary goal of LEARNS for Early Learning is to align all of the different public and private Pre-K programs, define Kindergarten readiness for Arkansas, and make these available to all of our kids.

Accountability and Assessment

Right now, DESE is in the process of finalizing the K-3 screener request for proposals (RFP) to go out to developers for that screener. We will soon know who will provide our screener and DESE will be looking for schools to pilot that this spring. Along with the screener work, DESE is working to streamline the K-2 ELA and math assessments. It is possible that the screener would meet the requirements for the assessment piece but that will depend on the vendor and what they create. DESE is hopeful as this would reduce the amount of assessment taking place each year.

We are delivering ATLAS interims right now and I appreciate the work and feedback during this process. It is brand new and our students and teachers are learning the nuances of ATLAS in preparation for the summative test this spring.

As our accountability piece continues to be tweaked, there is promise in the changes being discussed by DESE. One example is a recommendation that attendance no longer be used as one of our indicators since that is a variable that we really do not have a lot of control over. Another promising change being discussed is to weight growth higher in calculating our ESSA score. There have been examples cited of schools moving up an entire letter grade, sometimes two, just from that one multiplier change. I think that would help our district tremendously as we see growth as a motivation for our students.

Closing

Our Bearcats take on Rivercrest in Round One of the 2023 Arkansas High School Football Playoffs tonight in Wilson. The team left this morning with a great send-off from our schools. We wish them luck tonight as they continue to Make Mena Proud.

Veterans Day is tomorrow and I want to recognize the efforts of our Holly Harshman students and staff to honor our veterans. Thanks to all of those who put on those programs and thanks to all of our veterans who served.

The Mena High School Theatre Department’s performance of Newsies began today. You can catch a performance on Sunday at 2:30 pm or Monday at 7 pm at the PAC.

At Mena Public Schools our students are prepared, our staff is supported, and our community is confident.

Have a nice weekend!!