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District presents building needs assessment; staff cite absenteeism, ELL growth and staff recruitment as barriers
Summary
Tammy presented the district's annual building needs assessment to the board, outlining student demographics, barriers to achievement (including chronic absenteeism, increases in English-language learners and high rates of special-education needs), and proposed actions such as training, interim assessments and partnerships to address gaps.
Tammy presented the district's annual building needs assessment required by state statute and described data and recommended actions for each building.
The presentation reviewed head counts, the percentage of students on individualized education programs (IEPs), English-language-learner growth, chronic absenteeism and academic-level distributions reported on recent state-aligned assessments. Tammy said the district had a larger-than-usual increase in students for whom English is not a first language and noted building-level figures for students with disabilities: "If you look at the percentages, of the Cottonwood percentage, 46% of that is not students with, like, a OT or speech...of the middle school, 59 percent of those do not have speech or OT," she said.
Tammy identified barriers that keep students from moving from lower performance levels to higher ones: chronic absenteeism (202 students were chronically absent in the year reported), recruitment and retention of certified teachers, standards alignment, professional development time, access to high-quality intervention materials at the secondary level and social-emotional learning needs. On state assessments, Tammy said the new tests lacked established cut scores at the time of the presentation, so the district continued to look at prior-year comparisons and interim assessment data.
Proposed actions and resources listed in the assessment included targeted literacy training (referred to in materials as "letters training"), continued partnerships with the Elizabeth Layton Center for social-emotional learning supports, expanded use of interim assessments and FastBridge, a reading-leadership partnership, consultant support from Cultivate Education, curriculum review and investment in high-quality instructional materials. Tammy told the board the district planned a KISA (Kansas Instructional Support Assistance) committee to develop a professional-development calendar focused on standards alignment and interventions.
Board members asked how the needs-assessment timeframe should be stated on the form and whether the assessment should include quantitative year-to-year progress targets. Tammy and other staff said the state-required template asks for an estimate of time to achieve goals but does not require a specific universal numeric target for every item because student progress varies by individual and cohort. Tammy said: "I can't tell you. It might take you a week to learn something, and it might take Matt, you know, a month to learn it." The board discussed tracking tools such as FastBridge and i-Ready for building-level monitoring.
Why this matters
The building needs assessment helps the district and the public understand barriers to student success, target professional development and prioritize budget decisions. It is posted on the district website and is used for state reporting; staff said the data posted in July may differ slightly as state systems finalize cut scores and data uploads.
What happens next
The board approved the building needs assessment and asked staff to post it on the district website. Staff will continue implementation planning for the professional-development calendar, interim-assessment use and partnerships noted in the document.
