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District officials report improved achievement but caution about DPI changes to state report cards
Summary
District administration and building principals told the board that Spooner’s recent DPI report-card results show achievement gains and higher graduation/ACT outcomes, but state changes in tests and cut scores make year-to-year comparisons unreliable.
District leaders told the Spooner Area School District board Monday that recent Department of Public Instruction (DPI) changes complicate comparisons but that local buildings showed tangible improvements in achievement and targeted groups.
Dr. Aslan (speaker 12) told the board DPI revised performance cut scores, standards alignment and test designs, which reduces apples-to-apples comparison with prior years. He said Spooner nonetheless shows progress in achievement and growth measures and introduced building principals to provide more granular data.
High school principal Mr. Schroeder (speaker 13) said the high school’s composite score fell by 1.4 points under the new calculations but that ACT composite scores in both math and English-language arts exceeded the state average for the first time in a long time. He listed near-term actions: math foundations and pretesting for incoming 8th graders, ACT prep for juniors during 'rails' time, and continuing professional-learning-community work focused on differentiation and interventions.
The middle-school presenter (speaker 3) reported gains in the middle-school advanced category on the Forward Exam (from 6.1% to 17.9% advanced) and lower percentages in the 'developing' category, and credited Reading Plus and modern-classroom adjustments. Elementary principal Mr. Berghammer (speaker 15) said SES’s overall report-card score rose from 48.9 to 61.1 (moving from “meets few expectations” to “meets expectations”), noted improved achievement and math growth, and highlighted a 93.3% schoolwide attendance average.
Board members asked whether the new state reporting masks or magnifies recovery from COVID-era learning loss. Principals said recovery is ongoing and that instructional strategies and targeted intervention are central to continued progress.
The board voted to place the DPI report card materials on file; principals will continue work on the action steps already described and the administration will return with updates as needed.
