Middle school reports improved FastBridge scores, chronic absenteeism down from last year; behavior concentrated in small group

Mr. York presented the Shawnee Heights Middle School site-council report, summarizing enrollment, assessment, attendance and behavior data and describing building goals for the year.

Enrollment and assessment. Mr. York said the middle school enrolls about 548 students this year and reported fall FastBridge results showing 68% of students at or above the 40th percentile in math and 66% at or above the 40th percentile in reading. The school’s target this year is for 70% of students to be at or above the 40th percentile on FastBridge by year’s end.

Attendance and chronic absenteeism. Mr. York said 42 students were chronically absent at the time he pulled the data, representing 7.2% year-to-date; he noted the district’s chronic-absence definition is missing 10% or more of the school year. Last year’s chronic-absence rate finished at 13.9%. “It is the best intervention I can provide regular attendance,” he said, urging families to prioritize in-person attendance because “missing school is missing an opportunity.”

Behavior referrals. The building recorded 177 referrals affecting 76 unique students; Mr. York said about 10% of students account for 90% of referrals. He described the district’s approach as layering targeted interventions for a narrow group rather than broad disciplinary responses.

Instructional work and materials. The school is emphasizing formative assessment cycles and common assessments in core subjects. Mr. York said teachers are implementing newly approved high-quality instructional materials: McGraw Hill StudySync for seventh and eighth grade ELA and Envision for math. He said teachers have implementation goals tied to purposeful use of the district-purchased resources.

Honor code and academic integrity. Mr. York described an honor-code rollout and said instances of plagiarism and academic dishonesty have declined; he cautioned, however, that “the temptation to offload your thinking to AI is always there for a young person.”

Fundraising for student incentives. The school’s incentive program (“state”) rewards students meeting academic and behavior thresholds; the presenter said increasing costs required more fundraising this year and the parent-teacher organization raised about $12,000 to cover incentives and support students who cannot afford fees.

Board questions and follow-up. Board members asked for clarifications about what “revoke privilege” refers to; Mr. York explained it commonly denotes confiscation or temporary prohibition of devices such as cell phones or iPads. Board members also asked whether the district can produce cross-tab analyses (for example, overlap of chronic absenteeism with GPA or behavior referrals); Mr. York said he can run PowerSchool reports and work with counselors for individualized interventions and that each chronically absent student typically requires a specialized approach.

No formal action was taken; the report was informational.