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Sauk Trail principal: 2-way immersion enrollment, test-data changes and chronic absenteeism are top concerns
Summary
Principal Chris Dahlke told the board Sauk Trail’s 2-way immersion program now enrolls a majority of students and that state assessment changes tied to Act 20 make year-to-year comparisons difficult; the school also reported about 12% chronic absenteeism this year.
Principal Chris Dahlke told the Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District Board of Education on Tuesday that Sauk Trail Elementary’s student data is in flux after statewide assessment changes and that the school is focusing on attendance and bilingual supports.
“This is probably the wonkiest report I’ve ever given because our data changed, like the actual what we were using for data, due to Act 20,” Chris Dahlke said. She said the district’s shift in tests means results from fall-to-spring are not directly comparable to previous years.
The report said Sauk Trail is the district’s only school with a Spanish–English two-way immersion program. “Right now ... we have 54% of our student population that’s in 2-way immersion, versus the 46% in what we call English language instruction or ELI,” Dahlke said. The school serves about 365 students and roughly a third of them are designated multilingual learners, she added.
Dahlke and board members discussed how the different assessments work. She explained that AIMSweb requires students to read aloud for one minute with every error recorded, while STAR and FastBridge use different formats; the district switched to the state-required measures under Act 20. “AIMSweb is the grade level. Okay. That’s what’s different,” Dahlke said when asked why AIMSweb percentages look lower than STAR results.
Board members pressed for context on classroom supports tied to grant coding. Dahlke said classroom strategies are coded for state grant reporting and that the district uses a mix of reduced class size, instructional coaching and tutoring based on student need and grant requirements. She noted some kindergarten and early-grade classrooms receive reduced class-size supports while others receive targeted tutoring, and that the coding affects how state grants are reported.
Attendance was a recurring topic. Dahlke said chronic absenteeism has increased since COVID and that Sauk Trail’s rate last year was “a little over 12 percent.” She said the school made chronic absenteeism a school improvement goal and is trying a range of family supports to get students to school. Board members asked for examples of the tactics being used and for more historical comparisons.
Board members also asked about special education travel time, involuntary transfer language, and the handbook committee’s conversations about early-retirement language, general leave thresholds and no-blackout-date policy for leave. Dahlke said principals raised issues about how traveling special-education assignments affect teachers’ prep time and that principals had asked whether involuntary transfers could be handled differently than the current seniority-based process.
The board did not take formal action on the Sauk Trail report. Administration said it will continue to provide updates and that staff will work on clarifying handbook language where principals asked for further definition.
Dahlke closed her presentation by noting the district continues to work on integrating new literacy curricula into bilingual units and that it is too early to show measurable achievement changes tied to new reading materials. She said the district will continue training students in oral reading fluency to match assessment format changes.
Principal Chris Dahlke and district staff plan to return with follow-up information requested by board members, including more historical attendance comparisons and clarity on how grant coding maps to the classroom supports described in the report.
