Williston Middle Central Campus highlights attendance gains, BARR program and new alternative classroom

Williston Middle School Central Campus leaders told the Williston Basin School District 7 board on March 11 that the campus is focusing on lowering chronic absenteeism and expanding student supports through BARR and other programs.

Campus leaders said the school, which serves about 1,540 students in grades 5–8, has reduced chronic absenteeism and increased overall attendance by roughly 1 percentage point compared with the previous year. Administrators credited a combination of relationship-building strategies, monthly tracking through the BARR process and targeted family-engagement events for the change.

The presentation, given by Audrey Zimmerman, lead principal, and other building administrators, outlined three main attendance strategies: improving climate and culture, strengthening family engagement and increasing student engagement. Zimmerman said in her overview that the campus moved from 88% to 89% overall attendance in the most recent reporting window and highlighted a drop in the percentage of students identified as chronically absent compared with state averages shown in district data.

Nut graf: District and campus leaders told the board they are prioritizing sustained, schoolwide systems — not one-off activities — to reduce chronic absenteeism and address behavior, and said early evidence indicates those systems are producing modest gains in attendance and interim academic measures.

Administrators described the campuswide implementation of BARR (Building Assets, Reducing Risks), a relationship- and data-driven intervention model. Jen Shanahan, BARR coordinator and physical education teacher, said the model creates a three-tiered response system (small block, big block, community connect) where teachers first identify students in classroom teams and escalate to larger teams and community resources when necessary. Shanahan said BARR has improved teacher collaboration and helped staff identify students who previously “slipped through the cracks.”

Students demonstrated an "iTime" community-building activity for the board. Four eighth-grade students — Lily Walter, Malika (last name not provided), Brooklyn (last name not provided) and Angela (last name not provided) — described iTime as a structured period that helps students practice communication skills and build classroom connections. Lily Walter told the board that iTime “helps us communicate better with our peers and learn more about each other.”

Administrators also reviewed preliminary academic benchmark data (NDA+), showing gains across grade levels: fifth-grade math scale scores rose from roughly 595 to 615, and reading scores showed similar upward movement across multiple grades. Zimmerman emphasized trend lines (proportion of students at levels 3–5 increasing and levels 1–2 decreasing) as the key measure of progress.

Keith Glenn, fifth- and sixth-grade principal, described a new sixth-grade "Explorations" program that makes core content more hands-on and engaging. Tyler Hazer, seventh- and eighth-grade principal, and others said exploratory, cross-curricular projects during "Coyote Time" and team-based projects help reduce peer-to-peer and teacher-student conflicts in the short term.

The campus also described a new alternative education classroom intended for students with repeated disciplinary or attendance challenges. School leaders said the classroom is run by a single teacher who develops individualized schedules and interventions. Administrators presented attendance and behavior snapshots for the alt program showing average attendance at about 81.6% for the cohort (up from 76%) and a reduction in average behavior logs per student from about 30 to 8 across semesters. The principal said the program appears to lower incidents for students participating but warned that staffing, funding and community stigma remain challenges to scaling the model.

Board members asked for clarification about the district's chronic absenteeism definition and escalation process. Zimmerman defined chronic absenteeism as 10% of school days missed (the metric she presented) and described the campus' multi-step outreach: classroom-level concern, small-block teacher interventions, escalation to big block and then community connect with parent meetings and, when needed, referral for educational neglect or CHINS (Child in Need of Services) processes. Administrators told the board that regional CHINS capacity is limited — one facilitator covers multiple counties — constraining enforcement options outside the district.

Ending: Board members praised student presenters and campus staff for the programs and flagged attendance as the district's most urgent problem. Trustees encouraged continued emphasis on family outreach, tracking and multisector coordination to sustain the gains reported by the campus.