Week 29: The End of the 94th General Assembly

Happy Thursday!

We have a short week and a long weekend due to Good Friday. I hope you have had a good week despite the sadness that came from the loss of one of our students. Amanda Tolbert’s funeral was today. Despite the somber mood, it was very good to see many of our school staff attending to offer support and condolences to the family. Many staff members have poured their time, energy, and emotion into that situation, and the district thanks them for that effort. Even though we are suffering heartache over losing a student, it does not deter our mission that is set for so many more students now and in the future.

According to our district goals data, our efforts in the classrooms and offices continue on the same trends as they were before Spring Break. Attendance and discipline have been updated to include the weeks before and after Spring Break. Attendance rates remain close to the same and we are continuing to beat our goal for discipline. Our reading goal will be updated by the 18th, which is when our next board meeting will be.

In this week’s Wrap-up, I will continue with more of the vision for the state from Secretary Oliva and update you on further developments with our salary schedule and the new minimum.

Vision for Education in Arkansas

Secretary of Education, Jacob Oliva, spent a couple of hours with superintendents and business managers at the coop to outline his vision for the state. Last week, I wrote about what he plans for ELA. This week, I will share his message about math and the new Value-Added Growth report.

Math

Many of us remember how Common Core Math created a lot of controversies and how much of that was related to how math instruction changed to meet the new standards. The strategies used to teach math have evolved to become more conceptual in order to help students understand how numbers work. There were some side effects to this. First, parents did not understand the strategies because, in the past, we were taught procedures for math. Our new strategies were confusing and many parents could not help their children. Second, the focus on concepts decreased math fluency practice and many basic math skills have been diminished. Our students are not as capable of using math facts as quickly and accurately as they need to in order to be prepared for work and life.

Based on this information, the Secretary has charged our state department staff with rebuilding math standards and, just as with ELA, assessing those standards according to what students should have learned and constantly progress monitor. The standards will have a balance between math concepts and fluency and they will be expressed in a way that is easily understood by parents.

Value-Added Growth

The Secretary had the data scientists and code writers at the department create a data dashboard for schools to use. The dashboard is much more robust than the reports we have from the ACT Aspire even though it uses the same data. After the ACT Aspire, the dashboard will use the data from the Arkansas Teaching and Learning Assessment System (ATLAS).

The dashboard will display data in graphs and tables to help us understand the academic growth of a school, a student, and a teacher. We will be able to pinpoint areas of excellence and areas of need at every level. It will be a powerful tool for data-based decision-making. Here are a few slides with examples of the data display and types. I also think that based on the way this system is designed that it will be what the state uses to pay its performance bonuses to teachers.

This data is not as valuable now because the ACT Aspire is not aligned with Arkansas standards but this will change soon. When standards are built to be clear and concise and assessments are created to assess how well the students learned the standards. The data we get from this system will be very meaningful and informative to improve teaching and learning.

Salary Schedule

This issue has evolved since my plan was laid out for the board a couple of weeks ago. Superintendents and business managers from around the state, and especially within our coop, have collaborated to come up with a salary schedule that remains very similar to what we have and honor the daily rate of pay based on the new minimum without having to suffer a large increase in unfunded amounts. I will be scheduling meetings in the buildings starting next week to explain this to everyone and answer questions.

Legislative Update

Since the session is about to end, there has been a flurry of new bills. Here are some you may be interested in:

* SB510 - Irvin - TO AMEND THE CRITERIA CONSIDERED IN A SCHOOL DISTRICT'S REDUCTION IN-FORCE POLICY. The current policy for RiF is based on seniority. This bill changes that requirement.

* SB512 - Irvin - CONCERNING SCHOOL DISTRICT PERSONNEL POLICIES; AND CONCERNING A SCHOOL DISTRICT COMMITTEE ON PERSONNEL POLICIES. This bill requires that PPC meetings be recorded and made public.

* SB556 - J. Dotson - TO CREATE THE RELIGIOUS VIEWPOINT ANTI DISCRIMINATION ACT. This bill protects students who express religious views in class or at school.

* SB571 - J. English - TO AMEND THE ARKANSAS CODE TO CLARIFY WHICH INDIVIDUALS ARE REQUIRED TO DEMONSTRATE PROFICIENCY IN KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICES OF SCIENTIFIC READING INSTRUCTION. This adds more special education teachers to the list.

Closing

Congratulations to our Bearcat Band for the Superior rating they earned in the competition this week! Our FBLA students had an outstanding performance in their contests, too. Their competitions are based on real-world jobs and talents and it means a lot when our students are performing well.

We have also recently recognized our assistant principals, librarians, and paraprofessionals and I want to thank all of them for their effort in helping us make Mena Schools successful at achieving our mission and vision.

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

Have a great long weekend!!