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Sauk Trail principal: assessment changes, two-way immersion and chronic absenteeism shape school priorities
Summary
At a March board meeting the Sauk Trail principal described how recent state assessment changes and enrollment patterns in the two-way Spanish-English immersion program are affecting instruction and goals, and said chronic absenteeism is a rising school-improvement priority.
Sauk Trail Principal Chris Dahlke told the Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District Board of Education on March 10 that changes to state assessments under Act 20 have made this year's data harder to compare with prior years and are shaping how the school approaches reading instruction.
Dahlke said the new literacy item includes a "cold read" format that presents short, grade-level passages with minimal supports and counts words read in one minute. "With a change of data comes just that learning curve," Dahlke said, adding that students and teachers are adapting to the different presentation and format.
The principal also reported that Sauk Trail is the district's only two-way Spanish-English immersion site and that approximately 54 percent of the school's students are enrolled in immersion while 46 percent receive English-language instruction (ELI). "Research shows the trajectory for students learning two languages simultaneously catches up in middle school as those languages converge," Dahlke said, describing how bilingual students build vocabulary across both languages.
Board members asked about classroom strategies and the impact of smaller class-size and tutoring models. Dahlke said the district codes interventions differently for state grant purposes, which can make direct comparisons difficult: "It's more of the coding for the state grant than that they're really doing student supports and tutoring differently." She added that kindergarten classes are typically reduced-size and get targeted supports, while some first- through third-grade students receive one-on-one tutoring as needed.
Dahlke told the board Sauk Trail serves roughly one-third multilingual learners overall; the school documented about 18 home languages among students. She said instruction at Sauk Trail is in English and Spanish only, and the school "tries to honor and bring in those languages when we can, but not instruction" in all home languages.
On attendance, Dahlke identified chronic absenteeism as a growing concern since the COVID period. She reported the school's chronic absenteeism rate last year was "a little over 12 percent" and said improving attendance is now a school-improvement goal. "We know that when kids get to school, they have the opportunity to learn," she said.
The board pressed for clarity on assessments: Dahlke explained that FastBridge, AIMSweb and STAR measure different things and use different formats, which affects comparability. She said AIMSweb requires oral reading for one minute and is graded on aloud accuracy, while STAR is computer-adaptive. The principal told board members the school is adding practice with short oral reads so students acclimate to the assessment format.
The board discussed handbook and staffing topics that emerged during a recent handbook committee meeting, including early-retirement language, compensating teachers for pre-year preparation and travel time for special-education staff. Dahlke said the handbook committee is continuing those discussions and did not report final decisions.
Dahlke closed by noting that the school continues to integrate new literacy curriculum materials with bilingual-unit strategies and that the district has not yet seen conclusive achievement movement from the newest reading materials because it is early in implementation.
