Aligned Futures committee outlines metrics to boost attendance and family engagement in Sun Prairie Community Schools

Jamie Racine, the community schools program coordinator, presented an update on the Aligned Futures committee's year of work to the Sun Prairie Area School District board, joined by Stacy Christiansen and Latoya Holiday.

"The aligned futures committee has a purpose to study the needs of our community, the expectations of our partners, and to align resources, values, goals to our common purpose and vision for Sun Prairie Community Schools," Racine said, describing the committee's role in drafting a revised purpose and measurement plan.

Stacy Christiansen, site coordinator at Northside Elementary, read the committee's updated purpose statement: "The community school strategy transforms a school into a place where educators, local community members, families, and students work together to strengthen conditions for student learning and healthy development." The presenters said the statement guided the selection of three measurement themes.

Latoya Holiday, former Sun Prairie board member and cochair of the Community Schools Executive Committee, laid out the three themes and the metrics the group will track. Theme 1 focuses on student academic results tied to community schools programming: the committee will measure increased participation in out-of-school-time programs using site-based needs assessments and will track academic outcomes for students who attend those programs.

Theme 2 centers on family engagement and belonging. Holiday said the group will measure increases in family program attendance that align with site needs, track students' sense of belonging through survey data for program participants, and add a new parent/caregiver question to the annual survey to determine whether families identify community schools as a trusted resource.

Theme 3 emphasizes collaborative programming and reducing chronic absenteeism. "We really honed in on absenteeism this past year, and we saw some phenomenal, phenomenal results from that work," Holiday said, noting the committee intends to keep pushing that work and to measure both decreased chronic absenteeism among program participants and the number of new partnerships and collaborative projects across sites.

The presenters also described governance and legal questions as the program expands. Holiday said the committee has "enlisted the help of Shana Lewis, our legal counsel, to help us think about some of the legal questions" regarding the 501(c)(3) nonprofit's structure and its memoranda of understanding with the city and the school district; counsel is reviewing bylaws, staffing relationships, and insurance needs for sponsors and community events.

Jamie Racine closed by thanking the board and partners for their leadership and said the presenters will "look forward to answering your questions on Monday night," indicating a follow-up session for board members.

The presentation included numeric and procedural details the committee intends to use to evaluate impact: community schools began in 2011 at Westside Elementary and Prairie Phoenix Academy and now operate at eight of 15 district schools; site-based needs assessments will guide local program design; and new survey questions and legal review are listed as immediate next steps.

The board was presented with the committee's measurement framework and next steps; no formal motions or votes were recorded in the presentation.